I love Woody Allen films. He keeps making them and I keep seeing them. In fact, his previous film – Midnight in Paris – has made it into my top five favorite films of all time. However, his most recent film – To Rome with Love will not be making it into my top 10… or 20 or 30…

It’s the story of two young men; One a young American architecture student living in Rome and the other a newlywed in Rome with his wife to consider taking a job in the big city. While both embark upon a journey of professional development, both end up traveling down a road of nothing more than personal ill-repute…

Story: Woody Allen tends to tell stories anymore about artistic men being seduced by love. In fact, this film does nothing more than attempt to justify the extramarital affair. Each character is faced with a choice about being faithful or not and each one finds a plausible reason why its okay.

The story is not about architecture… it’s not about career opportunities… it’s not even really about the difference between fame and anonymity as battled by Roberto Benigni’s character. It’s about making love when the opportunity presents itself. Whenever that is. And the characters make that pretty clear across the film.

Performances: None of these performances merit. Jessie Eisenberg is the architecture student to Ellen Page’s flaky L.A. actress visiting her best friend and Alec Baldwin plays his mentor/conscience. Nothing significant here. Penelope Cruz plays a prostitute who ends up in a Lucille Ball-style dilemma with the newlywed while his wife ends up lost in Rome, then, in a hotel room with one man who is robbing her and her star-crush – an Italian movie celebrity. And Roberto Benigni’s plot line just comes out of nowhere and explains nothing. Again, nothing to see here…

Visual: I guess you expect to have a beautiful backdrop for a movie set in Rome and I think it was nice, but, with all of the unnecessary confusion happening, who could tell? for the most part, it was tight shots of the characters and no beauty shots. Why shoot a movie in Rome if you’re not going to see ROME?

Rating: To Rome with Love gets a C. It was hard to watch – I lost focus many times and drifted away from the TV even more. But, I’m still a Woody Allen fan. I chalk this up as, “You win some, you lose some.” I’ve seen other Woody films that didn’t do much for me, so, this one can go in that pile.

I saw it on DVD; If you’re a Woody fan, see it on DVD. If you’re not a Woody fan, don’t start with this one… it won’t get you there.