Now Playing - John Turturro's ROMANCE & CIGARETTES

"John Turturro's ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES is the real thing, a film that breaks out of Hollywood jail with audacious originality, startling sexuality, heartfelt emotions, and an anarchic liberty." - Roger Ebert

"There is more raw vitality pumping through ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES, John Turturro’s passionate ode to the sensual pulse of life in a working-class neighborhood of Queens, than in a dozen perky high school musicals." - NEW YORK TIMES

Part comedy, part romance, part drama, part musical, John Turturro’s ROMANCE & CIGARETTES teeters on the brink of collapse at every single moment, just like the filmfragile characters that inhibit the film’s frantic, manic world. The result is an unsettling, exhilarating, and thrillingly alive spectacle of a motion picture.

Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) is a blue-collar worker who falls under the spell of the gorgeous redhead Tula (Kate Winslet). But when his frustrated wife, Kitty (Susan Sarandon), finds out, the Murder family begins to short circuit. Of the three daughters--Constance (Mary-Louise Parker), Rosebud (Aida Turturro), and Baby (Mandy Moore)--Baby appears to be next in line for love, though no one approves of her choice of mate, the goofy Fryburg (Bobby Cannavale). Kitty’s absurd Cousin Bo (a hilarious Christopher Walken) helps her to track down Tula, but that proves to be a futile exercise as well. Along the way, there are crude coworkers (Steve Buscemi), annoying neighbors (Amy Sedaris), and brash in-laws (Elaine Stritch) to add even more zaniness to the proceedings. To make matters more bizarre, characters break out into song-and-dance routines whenever the fancy strikes them.

ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES blew audiences away at the Toronto Film Festival, but the studio has had a hard time figuring out what to do with this quirky, unclassifiable little gem. You may not yet be familiar with this movie, but take it from us, John Turturro has delivered a welcome breath of fresh air with ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES, now playing at the Alamo Downtown