room, rome

Andrea was halfway through a movie called "Room in Rome" when I got home last night, and she was kind enough to restart the movie so I can watch it with her.

In the movie, two girls hook up randomly in Rome. In Rome. Random hook-ups in Rome. I am so in love with the idea of people randomly hooking up in random faraway places that are pretty.

In summary: SOLD.

(cut for movie poster from IMDB, potentially NSFW, and shit-ton of spoilers)

Image from IMDB

Summary: Spanish girl named Alba meets Russian girl named Natasha and they spend their last night in Rome in a room together, unraveling each other -- in more ways than one, apart from the obvious. (Cue: Faders - No Sleep Tonight.)

Things I loved about this movie:
- How it takes me totally by surprise. I mean, I had zero expectations -- maybe a word or two on Twitter, but that's all. I didn't expect to like it like it -- I mean, maybe we were expecting some B-movie soft pr0n, and yes to a degree maybe it was soft pr0n (well, through some 90 percent of the movie both female leads were totally naked, but it's not entirely as pr0n-some as you'd expect. No, really.) but I'm smitten with the whole I'm-making-up-stories thing (that reminds me vaguely of Jeanette Winterson's The PowerBook) and then there's --

- The chemistry. I mean, apart from the fact that they're absolutely easy on the eyes (LOL yeah right), watching them together so comfortable is nice, I guess. To be completely trite. Add this to the fact that they have no qualms about looking ridiculous -- at some point Natasha's singing along to some sort of Russian MTV, and Alba's singing in the shower, and then they're both jumping up and down on the bed while laughing like kids -- all while naked, and at some point it all becomes ordinary that I almost forget that they're naked, in the first place -- like they're just two girls in a room together, having fun.

- It's multilingual -- they talk to each other in English, and to themselves in Spanish and Russian, and some of it is in Italian. All these different tongues and all these differently textured words. Lovely.

The rest of the things I loved: someone being a mechanical engineer (mmm yes please), breakfast in a veranda, rolling around bathtubs, a reference to maps. Use of Google Earth (LOL)

I thought it was a pity that the thing's supposedly set in Rome and yet there wasn't much of the scenery here -- I would've loved to see all those streets and those plazas, etc, but for some reason, I enjoyed the movie anyway, even if it were just shot in that room.

Things I didn't love: All those Art references I didn't get. Ngh sorry I feel so uncultured. Max that creepy waiter who's an opera singer. References to using wine bottles in compromising situations. (LOL.)

Take note that I'm not exactly all flail-y over the sex scenes because, for the record yes they're hot, but that's not all there is :)

Of that ending: I love endings that just sort of lie there, like open bins. Had I written a story like this (and I may have), I'd end it exactly the same way.

In summary: Hey it's not the Oscars or anything, but I loved it enough to write about it.