Fading Gigolo
Millennium Entertainment | Release Date: April 18, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
16
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklySabrina McFarlandApr 9, 2014
He (Turturro) lands a three-way with two eager ladies (Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara), but it’s his platonic meet-up with a lonely Hasidic widow (Vanessa Paradis) that establishes the deepest bond. Read full review
80
NPRBob MondelloApr 26, 2014
Turturro's direction owes a little something to Spike Lee, and a lot to Allen, who reportedly had a hand in helping refine the script — certainly his own lines sound as if he's simply riffing in character. Together they succeed in keeping the mood light, even as the filmmaker is gently tugging the plot in other directions — to look at loneliness, and longing, and heartbreak. Read full review
80
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekApr 16, 2014
Fading Gigolo is a breeze, enjoyable both for its sweetness and its unapologetic silliness. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 15, 2014
Turturro, writing and directing in a register light-years from his nebbishy turn in "Barton Fink," has a more sensual NYC indie in mind. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 15, 2013
John Turturro brings sensitivity and intelligence to a subject that could have gone terribly awry in Fading Gigolo. Read full review
80
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 15, 2013
Turturro has given Allen his biggest and best on-screen turn in years: the part was written for him and it's full of scope for amiable kvetching and nimble slapstick. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Adam NaymanMay 22, 2014
The preposterousness of this plot marks Fading Gigolo as a vanity project, but it’s hard to take Turturro too much to task when he hits so many other grace notes in between blowing his own horn. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMay 8, 2014
Fading Gigolo, a movie as slight and tender as its leading character, leaves you feeling you’ve just seen one of the few Woody Allen movies Allen didn’t write or direct. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandMay 2, 2014
This is a very New York film with a distinctly vintage atmosphere thanks to the sepia tint and cool jazz that plays throughout scenes - and sometimes over the dialogue. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 1, 2014
In Fading Gigolo, writer-director John Turturro turns what could have easily been a crass and unpleasant comedy into something soulful and substantial — with a lot of laughs, too. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinApr 18, 2014
What hallucinogen was Turturro on when he came up with this plot? It’s so crazy that it’s … fun. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 17, 2014
While Fading Gigolo periodically threatens to come apart at the seams, it is Turturro's most disciplined and delightful work yet. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 15, 2013
Fading Gigolo features enough strange narrative turns and modest laughs, not to mention a substantial role for Woody Allen as a very unlikely pimp, to provide a measure of curiosity value. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergApr 16, 2014
Fading Gigolo is not an entirely coherent film. It is, for the right and wrong reasons, a distinctive and memorable one. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 8, 2014
Fading Gigolo is like two different movies on an awkward blind date at a jazz club. While Allen charms us with a parody of “Broadway Danny Rose,” Turturro is off-key in his lounge-lizard riff on “The Piano.” Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 5, 2014
A quirky romantic comedy that suffers from a rare cinematic malady: it's too short. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 1, 2014
There’s a far more interesting movie taking place alongside this more than slightly silly one. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyApr 18, 2014
As an actor, John Turturro is a stalwart, alert, engaging character player. As a writer/director, he’s one of the quirkiest, hit-and-miss narrative moviemakers around. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 17, 2014
The breezy and sometime absurd Fading Gigolo is reminiscent of vintage Italian films and early Woody Allen movies. Read full review
60
The TelegraphDavid GrittenMay 22, 2014
That it largely succeeds says much for writer-director Turturro’s sly, subtle skills. Read full review
60
EmpirePatrick PetersMay 19, 2014
The premise is slightly bizarre but there's enough wink-and-a-nod charm in the performances to earn it a pass. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 9, 2014
A low-energy drama, but the kind that has a way of holding your attention -- and keeping you smiling -- for the entire time you're watching it, lifting your mood in the process. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 17, 2014
For all its shortcomings, “Gigolo” knows when to turn on the charm. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMay 7, 2014
The setup is great, but Fading Gigolo’s follow-through lacks dynamism. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaMay 1, 2014
Because the film is unable to settle on a tone, it's hard to get invested in much of anything. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 1, 2014
There are moments of surprising tenderness in Fading Gigolo, and Turturro gives us some beautiful shots of a city he clearly loves. But this film is all over the map, veering from pathos to absurdist comedy to romance to weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 1, 2014
The movie is a fantasy, and the choice is either share the fantasy or don't participate. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 17, 2014
Mr. Turturro’s musical choices in Fading Gigolo tend to feel, like so much here, generically applied instead of meaningfully coaxed from some essential, lived-in truth. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithApr 17, 2014
With Fading Gigolo, writer-director-star John Turturro does a passable imitation of a mediocre Woody Allen sex comedy, and guess who tags along for this would-be romp? Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedApr 16, 2014
It stars Woody Allen, but it still drags along like an oyster trying to walk. Read full review
50
The DissolveMike D'AngeloApr 16, 2014
Perhaps Turturro felt nobody would want to see (or finance) a simple, quiet film about a gallant Italian and a Hasidic widow, minus the high-concept gigolo angle. But in making the story more marketing-friendly, he’s undermined its sweet soul. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnApr 15, 2014
Intentionally or not, however, Fading Gigolo actually functions as something of a statement on Allen's persona—onscreen and off—as it has been understood in the public eye. And the resulting conclusion, like the movie, is a decidedly mixed bag. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreApr 15, 2014
Fading Gigolo is John Turturro’s idea of an old school Woody Allen comedy, so he wrote Allen into it. Read full review
50
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthSep 15, 2013
Fading Gigolo is mostly an inoffensive trifle, slightly undone by its lack of focus and mishmash of genres that don't quite come together. But it's breezily told and acted, with some decent laughs and unlike many comedies these days, it actually cares and respects the characters and the consequences of what they go through. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianJeff BakerMay 8, 2014
So lame and tasteless that it's hard to know what possessed Turturro to write it and anyone to finance it. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 17, 2014
The best thing to be said for this lumbering comedy is that it offers a chance to see Vanessa Paradis, the singularly alluring French singer, actress and model, play Avigal, a melancholy Hasidic widow in Brooklyn, N.Y., and play the role with exceptional delicacy. Otherwise, arrgh! Read full review
25
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaApr 13, 2014
The question of why one should actually work up any emotional investment in what happens to these people is never really answered, much less asked in the first place. Read full review
20
Film.comJordan HoffmanSep 16, 2013
Fading Gigolo wants to be some sort of sunny tapestry about New York’s social groups, but it’s impossible to see past its absurd premise. Read full review
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