Romance & Cigarettes

Actor and filmmaker John Turturro wrote and directed this emotionally resonant blend of music and drama. Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) is an ironworker who has been married for years to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), who works as a seamstress and is the mother of Nick's three daughters. While Nick loves ...more

John Turturro's loving (and unselfconsciously coarse) musical paean to working-class marital and sexual woes has some fascinating antecedents. The first is The Honeymooners -- James Gandolfini's Nick Murder, a straying, overweight, chain-smoking iron worker, and a schlub of a husband, resembles nothing less than a libidinous version of Ralph Kramden (as he might've been interpreted by Dewey Robinson or Dick Wessel), a parallel only reinforced by the character's immensely funny exchanges of ...more