words by Gabi Logan
Woody Allen's latest European destination film, To Rome With Love, debuted its first two-minute trailer last week. The film will premiere on the 14th of June as the opener at the Los Angeles Film Festival, according to yesterday from the organizers.
Previously titled Nero Fiddled and The Bop Decameron, To Rome With Love marks Allen's return to acting after a five-year hiatus. Continuing the vignette style of such city-focused films as Paris Je T'aime and New York, I Love You, the film follows four iterations of Allen's signature wry and wacky romantic antics.
Allen himself stars with Judy Davis in the first, as a father about to meet his daughter's Italian boyfriend and his family. Penelope Cruz, who won an Oscar for her previous collaboration with Allen in Vicky Christina Barcelona, plays a prostitute stuck on a misunderstood date while Roberto Benigni is mistaken for a mega-celebrity and tailed by paparazzi. Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, and Greta Gerwig round out the cast in a story about a young man who unwittingly falls for his girlfriend's best friend while she and his father are visiting.
"I've always wanted to make a film in Rome. I wrote the film especially for Rome because over the years and my many visits these little ideas occurred to me", said Allen. He incorporates the eternal city's history and scenery into the film in surprising comic ways. When a guide admiring the Vatican's frescoes says she can't imagine working all the time on your back, Penelope Cruz's prostitute character cheerfully says that she can.
