Film Review: 'Fading Gigolo' is slight and charming

13 June 2014 - 07:28 By Tymon Smith
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WISECRACK: Woody Allen clearly enjoys himself in another man's film
WISECRACK: Woody Allen clearly enjoys himself in another man's film
Image: The Times

John Turturro directs and stars in this sometimes vulgar, not always funny story about a New York flower shop worker named Fioravante who sells his sexual services to lonely women.

Ably assisted by Woody Allen, who plays his friend Murray, a retired rare book dealer who seizes on the idea of selling Fioravante's services to his dermatologist (Sharon Stone), the film is slight but often charming despite its high degree of ludicrousness.

When Fioravante meets a religious Jewish widow (Vanessa Paradis), things get complicated. It's not Turturro's best outing as a director, and he's willing to stand quietly in the shadows leaving the wisecracks and neuroses to Allen, who clearly enjoys himself in somebody else's film.

Evocative of a certain type of quiet, bourgeois New York existence full of walks in the park and dappled light, the film never quite lifts itself above its laconic atmosphere into something truly funny and memorable. Yet the chemistry between its leads and cameos from Liev Schreiber, Bob Balaban and Sofia Vergara make it watchable fun about men and women growing older but not wanting to accept their mortality.

Being so New York, it owes a lot to Allen's films but it doesn't quite have his ear for dialogue or mastery of the one-liner. What it lacks in narrative punch it makes back mostly in its gentle understanding of the many faces of intimacy and the loneliness that forms such a part of big city lives.

Turturro probably shouldn't give up his acting career just yet, but he can live with this little foray behind the camera in spite of the fact that many viewers may be left with little memory of detail; more of a general warm feeling for a few minutes after the credits roll.

'Fading Gigolo' opens at cinemas nationwide today

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