Queens – The Musical!

Last night I dreamt an entire film. It was a musical of sorts, set in one of the ugliest neighborhoods in the borough of Queens, NYC. It featured a trio of actors from The Sopranos (James Gandolfini, Steve Buscemi, Aida Turturro), as well as Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, Christopher Walken, and a handful of other cast members you'd never expect to find in the same film, including Eddie Izzard, Elaine Stritch, Mary-Louise Parker, popstar/irritant Mandy Moore, Fassbinder protégée Barbara Sukowa and Wes Anderson regular Kumar. It was full of raunchy, sexually explicit dialog, and musical numbers that found the actors singing along to such 60s chestnuts as Tom Jones' Delilah, and Engelbert Humperdinck's A Man Without Love. I awoke this morning to discover that it wasn't a dream at all, but merely the result of watching John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes at 2:00 AM. Produced by the Coen brothers, Turturro first came up with the idea for the blue-collar musical while working on Barton Fink, and one could say that Romance & Cigarettes truly has "that Barton Fink feeling.") Made in 2005, the film has yet to see the light of day here in the States, a casualty of the Sony acquisition of MGM. It's a shame, for this utterly insane musical deserves to be seen. But by whom, I'm not so sure. Set in the working-class community of Rosedale, Queens (directly in Kennedy Airport's landing path), Romance & Cigarettes can best be described as Mike Leigh meets Dennis Potter – a dysfunctional family dramedy with fantasy musical interludes. Gandolfini plays Nick Murder, a schlubby construction worker saddled with a wife, Kitty, who hates him (Sarandon), and a Greek chorus of daughters, Baby, Constance, and Rosebud, who mock him at every opportunity when not performing bad rock and roll in their cement garden. His only pleasure in life is his red-headed mistress Tula (Winslet), a potty-mouthed Brit with an exaggerated Yorkshire accent who casually tosses off lines like "you can knock on me back door, Marlon Brando style" as if she was talking about the weather. When Kitty learns of the affair, she turns to Cousin Bo (Walken, in a caricature of himself), an ageing, over-sexed Gene Vincent/Elvis wannabe, who suggests they kill Tula. What the film lacks in plot it more than makes up for in sheer inventiveness. As in Dennis Potter's work (The Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven), the musical numbers are waking fantasies, where characters express what they dare not say in words. Yet instead of lip-syncing, Turturro has the actors singing along with the songs, regardless if they are off-key, flat, etc. Supporting the second-rate singing is the choreography, which (I'm assuming) is intentionally amateurish and rather slapdash, coming off like a bad high school production of a Broadway musical. There are exceptions, including Christopher Walken's brilliant interpretive dance to Delilah, and Kate Winslet's fearless rendition of Connie Francis' Do You Love Me Like You Kiss Me?, which finds the chesty actress bouncing and shimmying in only a tiny bra and short skirt, her breasts fighting a losing battle to stay put. Still, what impresses most about the film is how accurately Turturro has captured this tiny section of the city, an area that hasn't changed in decades. This is the Queens of Archie Bunker, where aluminum siding dominates, and houses are spaced only inches apart. Positioned at the geographical edge of New York City (it borders Long Island), its proximity to Kennedy Airport explains the cheap, ugly motels that line Conduit Boulevard, and acres of undeveloped land that have become unofficial dumping grounds. Turturro, who was raised near there, is on familiar turf, and his portrait would be a masterpiece of realism if it wasn't wrapped around this absurdist musical. This is a warts-and-all look at the working class, which like the films of Mike Leigh, manages to be honest while avoiding a derisive tone. There is a healthy level of cynicism, particularly about relationships and the desperation behind most of them, but the film's bittersweet conclusion offers at least a hint of salvation. I honestly can't decide if Romance & Cigarettes' genius is planned, or a simply a case of happenstance. One thing for sure though, it is a film of unforgettable moments; Barbara Sukowa belting out Prisoner of Love in front of a garbage pile, Kate Winslet's underwater rendition of Nick Cave's Little Water Song, and a calf running through the streets of queens are but a few of the film's striking images. Equally as impressive is Turturro's razor sharp screenplay, which finds characters conversing in song titles, engaging in Pinter-esque exchanges, or uttering sexually explicit dialog more silly than salacious. (The Coen's influence is evident.) Romance & Cigarettes isn't a film for everyone. It's not a crowd pleaser, is at times uncomfortable, and might come across as too off-kilter for many. However, this experimental musical that both subverts and transcends genre conventions is a 21st century treasure. Somebody needs to rescue this from the Sony vault, and soon.