To Rome With Love: Another win for Woody Allen?

The 76-year-old filmmaker is coming off the biggest hit of his career with last summer's charmer Midnight In Paris. But his latest cinematic postcard stuggles to keep up

Alec Baldwin and Jesse Eisenberg
(Image credit: Facebook.com/To Rome With Love)

Last summer's potently whimsical Midnight in Paris was Woody Allen's best-reviewed effort in decades and his highest-grossing film ever. Like Paris, his latest, To Rome With Love, which hits theaters Friday, is a veritable cinematic postcard comprising three vignettes that explore romance in the City of Love. Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Penelope Cruz, and Roberto Benigni star. Are critics as charmed by it as they were by the Oscar-winning Midnight in Paris?

Not quite, but it's still good: The only unsatisfying thing about To Rome With Love is that it's not Midnight in Paris, says Stephanie Zacharek at Movieline. Paris was "rapturous, affirmative, and yet more than a little melancholic." With the "far less complex" Rome, Allen seems satisfied with "mere pleasantness," but that still makes for charming "breezy, stress-free" viewing. Penelope Cruz and Roberto Beningni are stand outs; she for her "exuberantly, cartoonishly sexy" performance, and he for resurrecting his career in a hilarious slapstick role.

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