Woody Allen and a Fine Cast Make an Enjoyable Movie in Spain
Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall are actors who are easy on the eyes, and writer-director Woody Allen uses them well in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), a highly entertaining rumination on the theme of romantic attraction. The setting is Barcelona, and the city, famed for its spectacular Gaudí architecture, is lovingly photographed. The mood is enhanced by sprightly, listenable Spanish music.
The film, one of Allen's best, is essentially a European-style sex farce where there's no nudity and the gritty details of sex are neither depicted nor discussed. Instead, sophisticated characters look simply marvelous while they inhabit charming locations and speak clever dialogue as they try to work through their feelings about romance. In the movie, Bardem's character ends up in sexual relationships with each of the characters played by Cruz, Johansson and Hall, and for good measure a ménage à trois develops, plus passion leads to one of the characters getting shot with a handgun.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona isn't really a romantic comedy, and although it is droll and witty and even laugh-out-loud-funny at times, it is arguably not a comedy at all since the ending is melancholy. The major characters try to find lasting romantic love, but the experience turns out to be painful. For all their struggles, love remains problematic. Perhaps, as one of the film's lines of dialogue says, "Only unfulfilled love can be romantic."
"The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to those things."
Woody Allen's screenplay for Vicky Cristina Barcelona is terrific, and the film appears to be strongly influenced by Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962). Allen uses a voiceover narrator (Christopher Evan Welch) to distance the audience and encourage contemplation. The first half of the movie is breezy and cheerful, but the second half darkens as the two title characters gradually realize they have deep-seated internal conflicts that they will probably never be able to fully resolve.
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are best friends in New York, and they visit Barcelona for a few weeks. There they meet a painter named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), and both become romantically involved with him. With a world-weary sigh he tells them, "I was in love with a most incredible woman, and then in the end, she put a knife into me."
He's talking about his volatile ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz), who comes in near the film's midpoint and darkens the mood. As Juan Antonio says about their relationship, "Maria Elena and I, we are meant for each other and not meant for each other. It's a contradiction."
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is basically an updated version of the old story where naïve Americans go to Europe and lose their innocence. But Allen goes to some lengths to show that Cristina and Vicky have different values, and he evidently finds Cristina's to be superior. The filmmaker sees to it that Vicky's transgressive behavior leads to her receiving a minor physical injury, presumably a strong warning that she needs to clean up her karma.
DVD Details
Below I have listed all the details for the Vicky Cristina Barcelona DVD, which provides no bonus materials.
Release Date: January 27, 2009
Feature Film Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for Mature Thematic Material Involving Sexuality, and Smoking
Widescreen (1.85:1), Color
English Dolby Stereo
English Captions for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Spanish Subtitles
