For a story that feels directly inspired from the director’s personal life, Mia Madre feels surprisingly bland. Nanni Moretti’s latest film focuses on Margherita (Margherita Buy), a director working on the troubled production of her latest film. Her on-set troubles come in the form of Barry Huggins (John Turturro), an American actor with a bloated ego; off set, Margherita and her brother (Nanni Moretti) have to deal with their mother’s (Giulia Lazzarini) failing health. Both children know that, with their mother, getting better isn’t an option; it’s only a matter of when she’ll pass on, and the impending death soon takes its toll on Margherita’s health and well-being.

Moretti faced a similar issue several years ago; his mother passed away while he was working on his 2011 film We Have a Pope, so it feels a bit strange watching Mia Madre unfold in such a bland and detached manner. Moretti throws in one clue after another about Margherita’s psychological condition, and his weaving in of dreams and fantasy sequences (all shot in the same way, making it hard to discern what’s real and fake at certain moments) does a fine job of establishing his protagonist’s fraught mental state. But none of it really coalesces into anything definitive about Margherita. It all feels fragmented, making certain sequences—like one where Margherita purposely smashes her mom’s car after catching her driving—feel baffling or out of place. Moretti makes it impossible to find anything about Margherita worth latching on to, and as a result, the central drama over her mother’s passing falls flat.

At least Mia Madre benefits from its cast. Moretti and Lazzarini feel somewhat wasted (Margherita’s mother barely registers as a character, which also contributes to why there’s almost no emotion in the film), but Buy and Turturro keep the film from being entirely forgettable. The shoddy script makes Buy’s characterization weak, but she does a terrific job expressing the strain of keeping herself together professionally while her personal life goes to hell (in other words, her behaviour may not be relatable but her emotions are). And Turturro turns out to be the lifeblood of Mia Madre, making Barry a frequently funny and bombastic presence who’s seemingly dedicated to pushing Margherita even closer to the edge. But the talent of these two performances might only be magnified here when compared to the very miniscule drama going on elsewhere in the film. The only thing Moretti achieves with Mia Madre is something that was most likely unintended: he managed to make a film about the death of a parent that inspired nothing but complete indifference.

Following the recent loss of one of the best (if not the best) performers of our generation, it feels like a gift to be able to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman grace a movie screen in any capacity. It’s something to be savored, but in God’s Pocket, one of his last ever roles, his talents, along with the talents of the rest of the uniformly brilliant cast, are done little justice. Everyone struggles here, including first time director John Slattery (Mad Men), who grasps and grasps but can’t manage to find a singular vision for the jumbled, lifeless tiny-town crime flick.

Hoffman plays Mickey Scarpato, an exhausted-looking fellow who lives in the titular South Philly neighborhood with his bored wife Jeanie (Christina Hendricks) and rotten stepson Leon (Caleb Landry Jones, who maximizes the few minutes he’s given). Leon is a terror of a shit-talker, infuriating his co-workers at his factory job to no end. Or rather, to his end: After pushing one of the boys to the brink with awful racist insults, he’s clobbered on the head and…well…so begins Mickey’s landslide of problems. He must bury the boy to appease the unappeasable Jeanie, which leads to him racking up major debt and getting mixed up with dirty mafia types.

The tone, writing, and performances in God’s Pocket are all incredibly awkward, which is a surprise considering the artists at work. Hoffman just can’t get his hands on the character of Mickey, with a fluctuating accent and emotionally ambiguous reactions to just about every situation. He clicks best with John Turturro, who plays his Sopranos-esque best friend and confidant Arthur, but even their chemistry doesn’t feel completely natural.

The characters are written too loosely, oscillating between working class clichés and unreadable moralism. Jeanie begins to take a liking to Philly celebrity journalist Richard Shellburn (Richard Jenkins), an old scumbag who makes a pass at her while sitting on Leon’s twin bed. The infidelity seems to be born out of her resentment toward Mickey, but her inner struggle is conveyed with the depth and subtlety of a pea-brained bimbo by Hendricks, who is capable of so much more.

There’s something off about the script (written by Slattery and Alex Metcalf), which tries very hard to mix quirky small-town humor with flashes of shocking violence. Both the comedic and dramatic elements are woefully uncalibrated and unbalanced, canceling each other out at every turn. When Arthur’s elderly mother shoots a goon in the chest at the family store, the man bleeding out on the floor, it’s hard to figure out the scene’s intended effect. The tired “old lady turns out to be a badass” gag is clearly comedic, but as Turturro kicks the dying man in the stomach screaming “This is my family!”, it all just feels very, very uncomfortable.

The neighborhood of God’s Pocket is well-crafted by Slattery and his crew, and well shot by cinematographer Lance Acord. The costumes and sets are rightly gritty, conveying the perpetual hard-drinking slump of similar salt-of-the-earth communities. The visual presentation is convincing–it’s just too bad that it’s the only thing convincing about this mediocre production. The stakes are unclear, the story is aimless, the performances are half-hearted, and those thirsting for another shining showcase of Hoffman’s gift will be sorely disappointed.

God’s Pocket trailer

After an evocative opening credit sequence featuring warm, grainy 8mm footage of old buildings in New York City that harkens back to the ’70s “director’s era”, Fading Gigolo locks its gaze on a charming book shop. Murray (Woody Allen), the owner of the soon-to-be-closing shop, suggests (in a fidgety, roundabout way that’s classic Allen) to his friend and employee Fioravante (John Turturro), that they enter a pimp-prostitute partnership to make some much-needed dough, Fioravante is audibly trepidatious, but barely flinches at the preposterous offer. He barely flinches at anything really, as is demonstrated in the rest of the film: his default reaction to any situation is a melancholy, almost expressionless stare.

This sequence is a good indicator of things to come. The well-written, interesting characters populating the film (written and directd by Turturro) seem to flock to Fioravante, with his low-key, knowing, guru-like aura. The problem is, he’s the most uninteresting character of the bunch, making the film feel a bit lopsided. Still, it’s an ultimately worthwhile experience. (Woody Allen is John Turturro’s pimp. That’s a priceless setup no matter which way you slice it.)

The film is an earnest, tender take on the world’s oldest profession, steering clear of many tropes of the subgenre and focusing more on the healing properties of the human touch. Fioravante’s new career as a high-end gigolo gets off to a great start, to his surprise. His clients (Sofia Vergara and Sharon Stone among them) gravitate to him because he treats them with respect and a gentle touch, awakening in them something that undeniably feels like love. He’s a natural, and business is booming, with Murray handing out business cards at local hangouts.

When Murray sends an extremely orthodox widow named Avigal (Vanessa Paradis) Fioravante’s way, however, things get more complicated, as he finds himself becoming emotionally attached to the fragile, meek mother of six. Their sessions consist of sensual therapeutic massages that unlock suppressed emotions in both of them. It’s a deeply moving, wordless exchange between the two, beautifully directed and shot by Turturro and DP Marco Pontecorvo. Paradis is a showstopper, conveying tidal waves of emotion with her tiny, porcelain face. Every quiver and lip-bite is captured in extreme close-up, underlining the sensuous nature of the experience.

Noticing a marked improvement in Avigal’s typically sullen complexion is the lovelorn Dovi (Liev Schreiber), a local law-enforcement officer for the Orthodox community who’s been in love with her since they were kids. “I’ve never seen her smile…not like this.” Suspicious, he investigates to discover her regular appointments with Fioravante at his apartment. Dovi utilizes every resource available to him (including Secret Service-like Orthodox agents, which is hilarious) to muck up Murray and Fioravante’s business.

Turturro plays Fioravante in such an understated fashion that he comes across as more detached than quietly perceptive. His ultra-low enthusiasm is too disengaging, to the point where, when he’s talking to the unbelievably funny Murray, he virtually fades into the background (pardon the pun). Yes, the at-arms-length nature of the character is by design, but it feels as though Turturro undershot it.

Allen is the crowning jewel of the film, putting on his best performance on film in years. He’s not doing anything out of the ordinary here–he convulses awkwardly when he doesn’t know what to say, his voice goes up and down like a yo-yo as he stammers, he overthinks everything he says–but the difference here is that he embraces the role Turturro’s writing wholeheartedly, aggressively finding ways to make scenes funnier. He even gets to do some physical comedy: When Dovi’s Hasidic SWAT team apprehends Murray and stuffs him into a car to take him in for questioning, he unexpectedly pops out of the opposite door in a feeble attempt to elude his captors, an attempt thwarted quickly. Precious moments like these are vital.

The plot is ridiculous, but the absurdity of it a.l is easily forgiven thanks to Turturro’s disciplined skills as a filmmaker. Many scenes shine, all of them involving either Allen or Paradis. What makes Fading Gigolo unique is its sensitivity toward the female perspective, representing hooking in a positive light as an emotionally therapeutic practice. There’s too much distance between us and Fioravante, however, for the film to go down as a seminal work.

Fading Gigolo trailer

John Turturro writes, directs, and stars in Fading Gigolo, a tender comedy about a stoic bookstore employee whose boss (Woody Allen) convinces him to become a male prostitute, acting as his pimp, essentially. Business is booming, but eventually, love, money, and religion begin to make their more complicated than they bargained for. The film also stars Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber, Sharon Stone, and Sofia Vergara.

In the following edited roundtable press interview, Turturro spoke with us about experimenting with 8mm cameras, what he learned from the Coen brothers and Spike Lee, Allen’s brutally honest creative contributions to the film, his work with Adam Sandler and Michael Bay, and more.

The film opens with the closing of a book store. Was that meant as a commentary on the contemporary transition from old to new?
John: It was based on a friend of mine’s store. I thought of the idea of things fading away and then trying to reinvent yourself. I wasn’t trying to make a political statement so much, but I do think that with progress there is loss. The whole idea of the film being in the sex business, which is one of the oldest businesses…I didn’t want to explore the dark, exploitive side of it much at all, but I thought, there is a human transaction that goes on. I’m using it as a metaphor for intimacy.

With dating there’s a transaction there, too.
John: That’s right. When you look at these really wealthy guys with these beautiful younger women, there’s a real transaction that goes on there. Maybe that’s a more dishonest transaction.

The opening credits set the tone for the film really well.
John: I was doing an NPR radio show and we were talking about using 8mm. We talked about our childhood and 8mm. I had films of my family in 8mm. I decided to buy a camera and do some tests, and I loved how it looked without even treating it! It looked fantastic.

What’s it like directing yourself? Seeing as how you’ve worked with such great directors as the Coen brothers and Spike Lee, are there any specific things you picked up from those experiences?
John: You learn a lot from every director. They don’t reinvent the wheel, but…how to set up an environment is important, how you prepare, how specific you are in your visual palette. Once you’ve been exposed to that, you’re either interested in it or you’re not. I worked with Francesco Rosi, who’s done some of the most beautiful films you’ll ever see. You learn when you work with all these different people, but in the end, you’re the one who’s going to put together your visual palette. It’s going to be your taste.

Directing myself in some ways can be very easy if I have enough time. When I don’t have too much time, sometimes the tension of the day can affect your performance, and I need someone there to say, “You look a little tense. You’ve got to loosen up a little bit.” I think, in the end, when you’re directing, you expose who you are very quickly. If you don’t like people, it comes out. I’m in charge, but I like to create a relaxed environment that I would like to be a part of.

You have these great working relationships with the Coen brothers, with Spike Lee, but you’ve also balanced that out with other working relationships, more comedic ones like Adam Sandler and Michael Bay. Is that a conscious decision?
John: I have to make a living, man (laughs). Let’s be honest. I can’t depend on Spike Lee and Joel and Ethan. They’re my friends, but they may not have a part for me. Years ago, I never made those big movies because there were these really nice, medium-sized films that were made. Those no longer remain. This film isn’t exactly a medium-sized film, because if we had a medium-sized, real budget, we would have had 8-10 weeks to shoot it.

When I did my first thing with Adam Sandler, I was very picky about it. I had a very good time, because I took two characters and made them one. I did Transformers because I had turned down so many big movies that my son said, “Dad…just do it!” And I had a good time doing it. But I don’t live in that world. I find it fun, and then I’m exhausted by it. It’s not like when I do a Chekov play or a film with the Coens. There’s stuff that you get in that material that gives you something. Then, there’s other material that you do where you don’t really get that much back from it. That’s not why I wanted to be an actor, even though I had fun with Mr. Deeds and the Transformers movies. I don’t look down on it. I try to do a good job. But, if I was a painter, these roles are more like a sketch versus a detailed painting.

I have to make a living, and that allows me to go do a play. I’m not saying that in a derogatory fashion. I thought You Don’t Mess With the Zohan was really funny for a while, but I don’t think it finished what it started. There were some fantastic things behind it, but…the mind behind it just broke down. But its okay…there’s room for that. I’ve enjoyed working with Adam. I think he’s a good actor.

Is the way you and Woody speak in the film the way you talk in real life?
John: No, no. But our relationship is maybe similar to that. But that’s not how we really talk. Those conversations are written. It’s beaten down. If that’s how we really talked, it would have taken five days to write the script. Even if we improvised something off of it, which wasn’t that much, it was pretty solid. Then I’d say, “Spin it if you want. Try it.” Woody’s really great at that. I worked on the script for two years.

Woody’s seldom in movies these days, but he’s as sharp as ever here. He even gets to do some physical comedy.
John: He’s a wonderful, wonderful actor, and I think he did a brilliant job for me. I wanted to make a good film for him because it’s a privilege to work with him. He made a big contribution to the film in a lot of ways. I consider him a friend. To work with someone like that, who’s done what he’s done over the years…it’s really a privilege. I don’t take that lightly.

Did he have a hand in the creative process?
John: I’d write the script, and then he would give me his feedback. He’d tell me all the things he hated, which were many, and I would have to think about it. He wouldn’t tell me what to do, but he was completely uncensored and brutal. “I could be wrong…but I hate this.” He’s a musician. He comes from a world where, if you hit a bad note, it’s bad. In standup comedy, which he did, if you don’t get a laugh, you get a bigger laugh. He has a big appetite for drama. He’s a guy that likes Fellini and Bergman. He also likes the Marx Brothers. That’s a rare combination. There’s nobody like him. Nobody. Not now.

You did a lot of research on Hasidic Jews. Why was religion an appealing element to use for the film?
John: If you’re going to make a movie about sex, you have to have an obstacle. It could have been Catholic, Muslim, whatever. I was interested in the headdress. All these women’s heads are covered. I like films about religion very much so. I think it’s related. you’re talking about suppression. Even the other side of that, freedom that we see, where people are gyrating on commercials in people’s faces…that’s as unenlightened as people being suppressed. I think it’s the other side of the coin, and it interested me. Sex and religion go hand in hand.

Elaine Stritch has one of the most enduring careers of any performer on earth. She’s an irreplaceable Broadway veteran, drawing thousands of eyes and ears with her skyscraper legs and unmistakeable, gaudy vocal delivery. Her television career started in the late ’40s, and chugged on for decades (she had a recurring role on 30 Rock as Alec Baldwin’s mother), and her movie career ain’t too shabby either. At 89-years-old, her immovable swagger hasn’t dwindled a bit: she still performs on stage when she wants to her rabid fan base, preys on poor souls her infamous scathing wit, and struts down the streets of New York like she’s 20 feet tall.

Chiemi Karasawa, a first-time director (though she’s worked on a bevy of other films as a script supervisor or producer), gazes at Stritch from an angle never before seen with Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, a riveting portrait of an American icon vacillating between feeling immortal on stage and fearing for her life in a hospital bed. Karasawa goes beyond the hagiographic (though she clearly adores Stritch), contrasting fun moments of the grande dame at her most flamboyant with sober, more intimate footage in which she penetrates Stritch’s theatricality, revealing her vulnerable side. People have beef familiar with Stritch as a no-bullshit broad for years and years, so to see her express her insecurities and fears, and even show signs of humility and keen self-awareness, makes her an even more fascinating figure than she already was.

It’s clear Karasawa chose her footage carefully, as each scene highlights a different color of Stritch’s personality. (Her sparing use of archival footage, including clips of Stritch’s famous At Liberty show, helps to reinforce that the film is not a career retrospective.) When Stritch begins having trouble remembering the lyrics to a song during a rehearsal, you can see on her face that the doubt washing over her is an unfamiliar–and most importantly, frightening–sensation that she’s fighting to come to terms with. In a brilliant scene, Stritch gets short with the cameraman as she gives him direction as to how to shoot her fiddling with a package of english muffins. She tells him the shot she wants, and she starts the menial task all over again, as if it were a scene in a narrative feature. Save for this instance, none of the film is staged, Karasawa’s inclusion of the footage is invaluable. It’s a perfect illustration of how hard it is for Stritch to shed her Broadway nature, even while doing chores at home.

Clips of Stritch performing a one-woman Sondheim show in a club act as the film’s structural glue: these evenly dispersed bits remind us of her extraordinary talent and ability to draw in an audience, even at her advanced age. Karasawa also includes talking head interviews with former co-stars of Stritch, including the late James Gandolfini, Baldwin, Tina Fey, and Nathan Lane. With a fond smile and a giggle they recall their experiences with Stritch, being at once taken aback and compelled by her larger-than-life attitude. She clearly has fans behind the curtain and camera as well.

The film is at its most somber when we see Stritch struggling with health complications and a lingering alcohol issue. Maintaining her blood sugar levels is a constant concern, she wrestles with whether or not she should ditch her daily habit of drinking a mini bottle of hard liquor, and her memory is fading. She’s coming to terms with the fact that her performer lifestyle is likely coming to an end, and this internal push and pull between her invincible spirit and deteriorating body is Karasawa’s focus. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me is a delight in that we’re able to spend time with as rare a creature as Elaine Stritch, but the film’s human elements elevate it to greater heights.

Chiemi Karasawa didn’t know much about Elaine Stritch before shooting Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, an authentic, honest look at the day-to-day life of the 86-year-old Broadway icon. Stritch, who’s also had a sprawling film career (she was in A Farewell to Arms AND Paranorman), is the definition of larger-than-life, exuding in real life the same dramatic, in-your-face bombast she pours out on stage and on screen.

Karasawa, a veteran of the film industry who worked for years as a script supervisor (Adaptation., Where the Wild Things Are) and now produces documentaries (Elevate, Billy the Kid). Shoot Me is her first directorial effort, and she spoke with us about meeting Elaine for the first time, convincing her to do the project, introducing her legacy to a new generation, and more.

Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me opens in select cities this Friday, March 14th.

What was it like meeting Elaine for the first time?

Chiemi: I did meet her on set for one day. She was cast as James Gandolfini’s mother on a film called Romance & Cigarettes, which my friend John Turturro directed. I remember that day very clearly, because she’s like a tornado of activity and drama. We were all very excited, and John was thrilled to have her do this cameo where she blows into a hospital room and tells her son off for a procedure he had done. Steve Buscemi plays his friend, and when she blows into the scene he tries to interrupt her, and she says, “Shut up!!!” I remember that you could hear the craft service guy in the next stage over drop his knife. (laughs) It was such an astonishing moment. Nobody expected that out of this diminutive older lady. That was my first taste of Elaine Stritch, and it sort of hasn’t changed since that moment.

I would have been scared shitless at the thought of approaching her with the idea of following her around, like, in her bedroom and things like this. What was the process of bringing her onboard this project like?

Chiemi: The idea came about at the hair salon I go to, which is Vartali on 57th street. I saw her there, and I asked my hair dresser if it was her, and he said yes. A few minutes later, he said, “You should be making a documentary about her.” He doesn’t say very much, and he certainly doesn’t make assertions like that. I went home and secretly did my web-stalking, googling, and I watched Elaine Stritch At Liberty and was completely blown away. I thought, “How is it possible that I don’t know more about his woman?!” That’s when I started approaching her and figuring out how to make it happen. It’s like trying to ask somebody out when you see them at the coffee shop, you know what I mean? (laughs) It was this weird courtship where I’d keep running into her, mentioning it, and she’d kind of get rid of me with as much politeness as she could.

Rob Bowman (Elaine’s musical director) and I happened to be at a dinner party together arranged by the salon owner. I think once he sussed me out and probably reported back to her, she decided it was okay. I was asking her to do the project, showing her my work, and talking about what it would be like. She was pleasantly accepting of the chat, but it wasn’t for four months that she said yes.

You’ve produced a lot of documentaries, and this is your first time in the director’s chair. Docs wouldn’t ostensibly seem to jibe with Elaine’s nature. She’s such a performer, and a theater legend no less. What was her reaction to the idea of you following her around, filming her eating donuts and stuff.

Chiemi: (laughs) By giving her go ahead to actually be involved in this process, it meant that she wanted it to happen on some level. If Elaine wants something to happen, you’re 95 percent of the way there. If she doesn’t want it to happen, there’s no way in hell it’s going to happen. The first couple of weeks was earning her trust and allowing her to know me and my cameraman as people and developing a friendly relationship. When you work in the theater, you have to become comrades. I think she has that ingrained in her blood, that we are doing something together. It’s not just me following her around with a camera: we’re hanging out. We’re family.

That was the approach she took, which was really refreshing. I kind of thought I was going to do the fly-on-the-wall thing, but there’s no way she’s going to allow you to be a fly on the wall. She needs to know who you’re dating, why you’re wearing that top, why you bought those shoes. “Tell me something about your family,” you know? Once you’re in, you’re in. You can call the doctor for her, carry her bags…she liked having us around. If you’re 87, you’re independent, and you live alone, there’s something validating about someone bearing witness to your life and having someone to talk to about that stuff.

I imagine you got a ton of interesting footage, considering there’s never a dull moment when Elaine’s around. How did you choose which footage to use to tell your story?

Chiemi: Every moment was a process of discovery for us. Because I was very familiar at that stage with At Liberty, I was sure that I didn’t want to make the story of an artist performing what their life was, you know? I wanted to do what I would consider the inversion of that, showing the behind the scenes, real life of an 87-year-old performer day to day, with glimpses of her stage performance. We don’t see enough examples in the media of what it’s like to be an actor or performer over the age of 60.

The fact that she was living independently, living this lifestyle, to me was worthy of a documentary, number one. Number two, the fact that she was touring with a one-woman cabaret show…what is that like? And I knew that she had donated her photo archives to the Stella Adler school for them to put on their walls. She was going to have to go through and choose photographs to give to them, and if you’re a documentarian, what a gift! You’re going to be watching a woman of her age going through 30 years of archival photographs. I mean, that’s the spine of a film.

Those were the motivating factors to follow. Once I recognized the stage she was at in her life–that her memory was starting to be a problem, that her health was a problem–I realized that it was probably heading toward some kind of critical mass. By the time I’d been in the hospital with her several times, and she gave me that poignant interview about it being time for her, I realized that that would be a huge moment in the film and started constructing the film backwards from that moment. It would be this universal story of aging. She was finally having to admit that the end was in sight for her life as she knew it, and she was going to have to start making changes. I kept thinking of my own parents, who are 80 and 90, and the fact that Elaine can put a voice and face to that experience in a way that’s humorous, poignant, and compelling.

What was the thinking behind including the english muffin scene, in which she’s directing your cameraman as if it were a scripted scene in a narrative film?

Chiemi: When she called me to tell me that she was going to be doing a rehearsal with Rob that afternoon, I was in Toronto, so I sent over a cameraman. I got this call later in the day from my DP saying, “I don’t think it went very well! She was trying to direct me, and I didn’t want to argue with her!” When I came home and watched the footage, I felt so bad that I’d sent this lamb to slaughter, my cameraman, and I could barely watch. Later on, when we were trying to find examples of how difficult she could be, and yet how it’s really about getting something right and that she can be her own self-saboteur in a way, that moment just popped out. It’s also quite funny, and a true depiction of her nature.

I didn’t know much about Elaine going into this film.

Chiemi: Great! You’re exactly the audience I made it for.

Was that one of your major goals, to send young people on this journey through Youtube, discovering her work?

Chiemi: That’s exactly what I wanted. I was very uneducated about Elaine, and I really wanted to save people the humiliation I felt. (laughs) Once I finally figured her out, I was like, “God, this woman is an institution!” Everyody should know who she is because she’s so unique. She’s not traditional on any level. She’s a survivor. She’s from an age of theater that just doesn’t exist anymore, but she’s also timeless in that she’s so honest, frank and sharp. In a way, she’s this remarkable time capsule with a completely modern attitude. I wanted not only to expose her to a new generation, but just show off this incredible person who lives here in New York at the Carlisle Hotel. It’s evidence that this incredible person exists.