Despite being married to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), who is still very attractive but a good deal older that Tula, Nick's eye has wandered. When Kitty finds a filthy poem written to Tula, she confronts Nick who is then verbally attacked by not only Kitty, but their trio of rocker daughters (Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Moore and Aida Turturro). Kitty, determined to find this Tula person, calls upon her wacky cousin Bo Diddley (Christopher Walken, a man who is all too happy to perform a kooky dance number in any movie he stars in) to seek her out. When Kitty locates Tula at the lingerie shop, their verbal exchange is actually fairly well hysterical as Kitty uses the most foul and descriptive words carefully mumbled into her conversation - "Can you scum a bit closer?" is the tamest and the only one I can safely quote. The two end up rolling on the floor in a musical catfight to end all catfights.
In the meantime, Kitty and Nick's youngest daughter, Baby, gets engaged to her flamboyant bandmate, Fryburg (Bobby Cannavale), much to her parents' chagrin. Nick's pal and co-worker, Angelo (Steve Buscemi) tries to offer advice and a few wacky tunes and dance numbers, in an attempt to help Nick sort out his life. What finally slows Nick down is a free-for-all battle with the boyfriend of an idiotic neighbor (Amy Sedaris) who was shoveling snow on Nick's lawn. The two come to blows and Nick winds up in the hospital where the doctors diagnose him with what I can only assume is lung cancer. I say this because it's never actually said, but there's a musical number with fanciful x-rays of lungs moving about. This jarring event sobers Nick up so that he breaks things off with Tula and goes back to Kitty, but she won't have him. She'll help him in his time of sickness, but no more. Sadly, Nick succumbs to his illness and life goes on.
Romance and Cigarettes has an interesting soundtrack, but it was more of a trip to crazy town than anything else. In watching the special features, it's clear that this was a movie John Turturro had wanted to make for many years and he was very excited about it. The crew seemed to have a really good time making this crazy film, but still, it just didn't reach out and touch me. While the acting was quite good, I never felt invested in the characters. They all seemed fairly selfish and I didn't find that I cared what happened to them. Unless you are a fiend for offbeat musicals, I can't really recommend this film.
