Room in Rome

Room in Rome (2010) is a chamber drama about two strangers, both exquisite young women, sharing a night of sex and conversation in a Rome hotel room, yet it is less erotic than the charged premise and the casting of Elena Anaya - would suggest. In the last movie I saw Anaya in, Sex & Lucia, (also written and directed by Julio Medem), she brought a commendable if embarrassing amount of passion to a love scene with a dildo; in Room in Rome, she brings the same uninhibited verve to developing the emotional interior of her character, and as in Sex & Lucia, Anaya has to generate heat solo. As her bi-curious partner in erotic and personal revelation, Natasha Yarovenko is a little too convincing at conjuring heterosexual discomfort. While the sex scenes themselves are a cut above the music video montage-style that passes as sexy in Hollywood, Medem's framing – and the script’s pillow talk - accentuate Yarovenko’s icy body language and stilted line delivery. One damaging scene has Yarovenko’s character interrupting sex to request penetration with a wine bottle. Anaya looks just as flabbergasted as I felt, and the scene casts a chauvinistic, awkward dissonance on the tenor of the rest of the film. Questionable choices by the music supervision department and a few overwrought monologues that aspire to tragedy further detract from - but cannot bury - the vivacity and skill of Anaya’s performance.