Starring: John Tuturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis
With his rare book store facing closure, Murray (Allen) confides in his friend Firorovante (Tuturro) that his doctor (Sharon Stone) wants to have a ménage-a-trois with her girlfriend (Sofía Vergara) and Murray suggests loaning out Fiorovante out for a fee of a thousand dollars. Developing this into a side profession, Fiorovante also gets close to Avigal (Paradis), the widow of a Rabbi in a very traditional Jewish community.
John Tuturro has had a long career in Hollywood, primarily making a name for himself as an actor and known for his work with the likes of Spike Lee, Michael Bay and the Coen brothers. But on occasion Tuturro has been known to write and direct films and here he does all three with Fading Gigolo a decent if unremarkable and throwaway romantic comedy.
From the start you know where you are, stylistically. The New York architecture, jazz music and humour slightly above the norm in terms of sophistication place this firmly within he style of Woody Allen so it comes as little surprise that the man himself is Tuturro's co-star. It's clear that Allen's own work has had influence but Tuturro's own sense of writing and staging comedy unsurprisingly puts this film beneath the lofty reputations of Annie Hall (1977) or Manhattan (1978) but it still has charm and Woody Allen still does well, playing a similar character to his usual neurotic complainers even if he isn't using his own material.
Tuturro comes at his role with more warmth than is seen in his usual performances, where he tends to play obnoxious types (even with a hint of Woody Allen in his titular leading role in Barton Fink (1991)) but given a nicer character, Tuturro doesn't seem as colourful as charismatic, seeming a little out of his element. Meanwhile, whilst we do learn a lot of Vanessa Paradis as the Rabbi's widow, her screentime does push out the other two central female performers, Sharon Stone and Sofía Vergara (Vergara in particular is usually only given a major defining feature when referencing her..."ample" physical attributes).
The film takes place often against a backdrop of a conservative Hasidic neighbourhood. Something you don't often see in movies and allows for some unique ideas and characters, such as Liev Schrieber as a protective member of the Shomrim (essentially, a Jewish group who protect people in their community from crime) and the film tackles some aspects of the culture in such a way that whilst interesting can be seen as being depicted in a way that could be construed as offensive, given the often outlandish light it's cast in.
There are numerous problems in Fading Gigolo. The plot is portrayed in a strange light (it almost seems that the audience should feel bad for Tuturro, who seems to have written a script based around heterosexual male fantasies) and the characters are often one-dimensional or not fully thought out but it is, ultimately, harmless, good for a laugh and most people will probably fond something to enjoy in it.
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