By Alex Deleon, <filmfestivals.com>
On paper "Fading Gigolo" with a Dream Team lineup looks like a sure winner. An excellent New York actor, John Turturro stepping behind the cameras to direct both himself and Woody Allen in a Jewish tale seemingly tailor made for Woody's style of humor with backup support from actresses of no lesser stature than Susan Stone and French star Vanessa Paradis, plus Liev Schriver who seems to be in everything these days playing a tough neighborhood watch cop in Hassidic drag. The setting is the ultra orthodox Jewish section of Brooklyn and, while Turturro himself is not Jewish, his wife is and he knows the milieu.
So off I went with movie buddy and screen writer Jeff Shank to catch this picture first run at the elegant new Laemmle theater in North Hollywood. Result ~ less than overwhelming.
And here is my immediate reaction ...as expressed in an email to a Jewish friend in Paris.
Finally got out to a movie tonight. Saw the new Woody Allen --as actor only -- in "Fading Gigolo" a flick directed by and starring John Turturro,npainfully. The pic Starts out pretty funny in the heart of the Hassidic Williamsburg district of Brooklyn with some classic Woody Allen banter but quickly settles down to a long tedious bore featuring a decidedly over the hill (but still not too bad looking) Sharon Stone as a single sex-starved middle-aged skin therapist and erstwhile French sexpot Vanessa Paradis as a peculiarly attractive Jewish widow with a headress of false hair to preserve her modesty.
In "Gigolo" Turturro who wrote the script as well, makes Allen over into a pimp and himself into the gigolo of the title that Allen is pandering for. Hard to see middle aged Turturro as a marketable sex object these days, but the women Allen picks out for him to service are no spring chickens either and find him more than adequately vigorous -- hence the justification for the title. John may be a little long in the tooth to gigolize, but he is after all an Italian stallion -- and that is the central conceit of this not very convincing tale.
In passing the film proposes to paint a telling inside portrait of this ultra religious Jewish community but succeeds only in presenting a ridiculous catalogue of some major actors in awkwardly maladjusted roles. "Gigolo" is clearly a well intentioned attempt at a pro-Semitic European type art film, but misses the mark by miles. Turturro tries for deeper meaning with long brooding closeups of himself designed to convey the profound internal conflicts his gigolo character is undergoing, but Antonioni this is not.
Boring and misconceived all around. An embarassment that only a Jewish mother could love -- especially if she keeps kosher and firmly observes the Sabbath. Resonates oddly with the smarmy allegations of incestuous sexual child abuse raised recently by a stepdaughter of Allen's decades after the (supposed) fact, and his own vehement denial of same.
Best scene: A closeup of the making of a classic New York Chocolate "A" Creme at an old time soda fountain counter -- the only scene with any real fizz.
As for Woody, who is the real fading Gigolo of the piece, one is reminded of the plaintiff Paul McCartney ballad: "There's a shadow hanging over me ... oh, yesterday came Sudden-ly...
ALEXFARBA FILM WEBSITE: http://www.alexfarbafilm.com