Turturro's attempt to mix working-class magical realism and MGM romanticism is wildly uneven.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Romance & Cigarettes wears thin, like a moral for the titular addiction: Sure, there's the sweet dream of that first drag, but a whole pack'll do a body bad.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 18, 2008

It shouldn't work, but there's something beautiful in Turturro's non-judgmental, almost affectionate, exposure of human love as the courting dance of clueless primates

| Original Score: A- | Jan 29, 2008

No musical in the past 10 years (with the exception of Chicago) has had the courage of its convictions, and that's the whole problem.

| Jan 18, 2008

In a season seasoned with off-beat originality in the movies, from Lars and the Real Girl to I'm Not There, you still have not seen anything quite like John Turturro's extraordinary Romance and Cigarettes.

| Jan 3, 2008

How weird is John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes? Almost indescribably weird, though also strangely involving.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 21, 2007

Romance and Cigarettes is a dark-red valentine to the way that pop music gets under our skin.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 14, 2007

Romance and Cigarettes is a clever idea, poorly executed.

| Dec 7, 2007

It is not every musical that features lung cancer and James Gandolfini singing along with Engelbert Humperdinck to that every-day-I-wake-up 1960s standard 'A Man Without Love.'

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 6, 2007

While it looks like it was great fun to film, it's regrettably little fun to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Dec 6, 2007

This singing-along-to-the-radio effect has a dingy charm that honors the blue-collar Italian setting, yet Turturro spoils it by turning the movie into a hip star party.

| Dec 6, 2007

The movies need more of this kind of crazy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 30, 2007

Romance & Cigarettes is not your usual drama about a troubled marriage. It attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 21, 2007

Romance and Cigarettes is lewd and it's lurid and looks to be a lost pop opera, but it has more vitality than anything else out there.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 15, 2007

John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes is the real thing, a film that breaks out of Hollywood jail with audacious originality, startling sexuality, heartfelt emotions, and an anarchic liberty.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 9, 2007

The movie comes on as a novelty item, meaning it's so full of disparate parts and so unable to approach coherence, it just sits there and burns out.

| Nov 8, 2007

It has cult item stamped all over it, and fans of (severely) experimental cinema might see it as a revelation. Most others will find that watching this movie is like having your senses beaten with a rake.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 7, 2007

If you're game for something different, it's worth a few giggles.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 7, 2007

There is more raw vitality pumping through Romance & Cigarettes than in a dozen perky high school musicals.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 7, 2007

It's karaoke with a vengeance, the circle of the inferno that Dante could never in his wildest imaginings anticipate.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 6, 2007