Desperate times call for desperate measures, and this has never been more true than the protagonists in John Turturro’s delightfully irreverent and oddly sentimental Fading Gigolo, a charming comedy in which the esteemed actor makes his fourth directorial endeavour, teaming up with Woody Allen to tell the story of a pair of down-on-their-luck New Yorkers – one an elderly rare book dealer whose store is closing down due to lack of interest, the other a lonely part-time florist who seems to be settling into the reality that he is bound to spend the rest of his life in solitude, a fact that he has come to begrudgingly accept, questioning his choices and realizing that they are his burden to carry despite his best efforts. However, there seems to be a way out, which involves connecting our lonely protagonist with the many curious women littered across New York City, which proves to be quite a lucrative exercise – but when an enigmatic widow enters the fray, everything is called into question, and trouble begins to brew amongst this closely-knit community. A fascinating deconstruction of masculinity, identity and human psychology, the film is a carefully curated series of moments in which Turturro, who has proven himself to be a terrific director on more than one occasion albeit one that is not often recognized for his exceptional work, weaves together many peculiar elements and presents them in such a way that they are tender and heartfelt while remaining bitingly funny and subversive. Not a film that has developed as strong a cultural cache as it perhaps ought to have achieved, despite having many terrific elements that make it quite effective and far more intriguing than a cursory glance may suggest, Fading Gigolo is still a very charming film that deserves more attention, if only for its unique look into the life of a character who may seem convention in theory, but who has many bespoke elements that earn our attention, with Turturro crafting an intimate and captivating blend of existential philosophy and outrageous comedy to make a film that questions many prominent themes, doing so with the assistance of a great cast who work closely with the director to bring his unconventional vision to life.

Various narrative strands factor into the fabric of Fading Gigolo, which we find are quickly established throughout the story. Primarily, this is a film that looks at contemporary life in New York City, a location that artists have looked towards for centuries as a place to find inspiration, and which is quite possibly the most photographed city in the world, with the film industry, in particular, having a particular fondness for its unique tempo and distinctive appearance. However, for Turturro this was a more personal affair – this was not the sprawling, exciting metropolis that everyone aspires to conquer, but rather his home, and while we can easily focus exclusively on the more lascivious and potentially boundary-pushing aspects of the narrative, the aspects that make Fading Gigolo such a heartful exercise are those that point towards it being the director’s delicate love-letter to his hometown, particularly the suburbs of Brooklyn, where most of the film takes place. The sexual aspects of the story, while prominent, are just exposition designed to introduce us to the central themes, which are focused on cultural collision – throughout the film, we encounter different communities that live together in the city, co-existing in what appears to be relative harmony, with the small differences being clear but not the source of any tension or discord, but rather the foundation for a few charming moments of humour as Turturro attempts to fashion as accurate a portrait of contemporary Brooklyn as he can. The film centres on an Italian-American living in a primarily Jewish area, which is also home to his best friend who has recently developed a relationship with an African-American woman and unofficially adopted her children – when Allen’s character jokingly references the concept of a “rainbow coalition”, its not entirely false, and as a tapestry of life in the city, the film is a wonderful cultural document that is at its most interesting when investigating these ideas in addition to the central themes, which only strengthen the underlying discourse we encounter throughout the film.

As much as we can wax poetic about how Turturro pays tribute to the city he loves, it is obvious that Fading Gigolo is a much more complex film when it comes to its themes, and that it is based around the concept of sex work, a topic that remains extremely controversial and widely discussed. Even in the subsequent decade since the film’s release, the subject remains contentious, with the idea of individuals working to support themselves through a practice that, as one of the characters in this film states, is indeed one of the oldest professions known to humanity, being the source of a lot of debate, particularly when it comes to body autonomy, conservative values and a range of other matters. Turturro shifts the narrative slightly by tweaking the conversation – suddenly, we’re looking at the story of a man rapidly approaching the other side of middle age who is coerced into a new line of work that he is not prepared for, but yet still finds intriguing based on the idea that it is seemingly something into which he can easily work his expertise as a man of the people and cultural academic. It is in this aspect of the film that we discover that Fading Gigolo truly isn’t driven by sexuality, but rather something much deeper – it is a story about a man searching for meaning, trying to make sense of a world that he no longer recognizes, and who decides to reinvent himself, which he does through creating a new identity. Some of this is certainly quite obvious, and the film leaves very little room for ambiguity for the most part since it is far more interested in exploring the more compelling undertones that accompany the obvious side of the narrative, but we do find that the blend of more contentious subject matter with the elegant existential philosophy makes for a profoundly captivating experience. We follow the character of Fioravante as he navigates a series of challenges, doing his best to shift his identity to fit the various criteria of his clients, and in the process developing a sense of understanding towards his place within the world, which proves to be quite a challenge, but one that he is willing to undergo for the sake of feeling that elusive sense of belonging that he eventually encounters when stepping out of his comfort zone and embracing his innermost desires.

In addition to writing and directing the film, Turturro takes on the titular role of the supposedly “fading” gigolo, a mild-mannered man who considers himself the archetypal sensitive academic, someone who has chosen a more simple path in life, but is now seeing the other side of such a decision, since a more modest existence begets a lack of opportunities to experience life’s many supple pleasures, both in terms of carnal satiation and human interaction. He’s terrific in the film – considering many of his more prominent roles are supporting parts where he is usually the comedic relief or a more villainous figure, it is always a welcome surprise to see Turturro front and centre, especially in a role so tailored to his specific talents. We don’t often get to see this more delicate, earnest side of him, and while he is considerably more subtle here than he usually is, the performance is still undeniably well-crafted and charming, with his natural gifts being the primary propellant for the character. However, perhaps his most impressive accomplishment with Fading Gigolo was not only recruiting Woody Allen to play the co-lead but drawing out maybe his greatest performance since the 1980s, which is by no means an exaggeration. As he shifted more towards directing and started acting less in his films (and when he did, he usually just tended to play derivatives of the same nebbish character without any real nuance), Allen lost the lustre he had earlier in his career as an actor – and perhaps it took someone else taking the helm to draw out those inherent gifts, but he is an absolute riot in this film, playing the part of the eccentric best friend of the protagonist in a way that is oddly quite moving, taking a potentially one-dimensional role and rendering it spellbinding. The rest of the cast is also exceptional – Vanessa Paradis is oddly moving as the Jewish widow who acts as the catalyst for the protagonist’s emotional journey, whereas Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara are thinly-written archetypes, but undeniably funny and have their moments of genuine brilliance that make their contributions to the film very valuable. Even the brief, one-scene bit parts by working actors are very good, and it is also clear when a film is directed by someone who has experience acting, since even the smallest of roles tend to have some substance behind them, making Fading Gigolo an oddly communal experience.

Perhaps the one area in which the film slightly falters, albeit not by much, is in how it executes its ideas in certain parts. Fading Gigolo is a film in which the emotional content is not quite as cohesive as its more academic concepts. Turturro writes a brilliant screenplay, but some of the ideas don’t come together quite as well as they should, primarily because the elements that should bind them together are slightly weaker – it’s not enough to sully the experience or make it any less entertaining, but it does create a slightly less effective transition between certain moments, such as in the case of the blending of comedy and drama. On one side, we have an outrageous, eccentric comedy about an older man who decides to become a gigolo, going against his better judgment, supplemented by an eccentric cast of supporting players. On the other, we have a melancholic story of the same man as he navigates middle age as someone who begins to realize that he waited so long to find the right person, he has essentially missed the opportunity entirely and is now nothing more than a curiosity for women who are intent on objectifying him in the same way that they have been treated throughout their life. There are layers to this film, and while in isolation they are extremely effective, the movement between them can feel somewhat inconsistent at times, which we can attribute to Turturro only directing periodically. Yet, even with this slight caveat in mind, it is difficult to not find value in how he approaches the film and its many themes – it has a deeply sentimental soul, but it never comes across as needlessly dense or manipulative, and even in the most tender moments, it feels earnest and poetic, rather than simply trying to pluck on the heartstrings. The deeper emotions are countered with wildly off-the-wall humour, which creates a perfect balance in terms of tone, the blend of ideas being pivotal to the film’s overall identity and the main reason it feels like such a major work in terms of everything that it sets out to achieve, which is indeed a credit to Turturro for being so willing to take some bold risks in terms of subject matter.

As a director, Turturro has not made his definitive masterpiece – films like Romance & Cigarettes and The Jesus Rolls have their supporters and are well-liked, but they’re still flawed, and some of his other endeavours are more underseen (such as his wonderful documentary Pasione, which develops on some of the ideas of cultural identity that we begin to see shining through in some of his work), and it is foolish to imagine that Fading Gigolo is the film that changes that since it is still a film with imperfections that prevent it from truly achieving greatness, or at least on the same calibre as his acting work. Yet, this is still a very charming film with many moments of ingenuity and brilliance – the script is sharp and filled with some genuinely funny sequences, as well as a soulfulness that we find to be quite unconventional for something that many have inaccurately written off as a merely trivial sex comedy about an over-the-hill male sex worker. This is not the case at all – what Turturro does here is carefully crafting a story about a man searching for a place in the world, growing weary of the crippling loneliness that he hides within, and who gradually begins to open himself up to the outside world, slowly but surely discovering that there is much more to life than just his immediate surroundings. Anchored by a delightful performance by Turturro, who takes the opportunity to show that he can indeed play a romantic lead with the same intensity and charm as any of his contemporaries, and features an excellent supporting cast that works together with him to realize some of these abstract ideas, Fading Gigolo is an entertaining, compelling film that is as heartfelt as it is wonderfully unique, a combination that we may not expect based on a cursory glance. Lovable, captivating and never anything but pure in its intentions to explore this character’s life, its efforts to provide some insights into the mind of a profoundly lonely man yearning for some sense of cohesion in his humdrum life make for a truly tremendous and perpetually entertaining work of comedy that is in dire need of reassessment, even if only for the sake of seeing how it blends many different concepts and finds the value in every one of them.