Film Review – Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Thought it might be cruel to call this Woody Allen lite, that’s how this enjoyably puckish, satirical comedy comes across. Allen directs but doesn’t appear in the film, taking more than a few cues from Amoldovar as its three leading ladies vie for the affection of a goodlooking painter. Laughs are plentiful (many of them encouraged by a deadpan voiceover that serves as Greek chorus), even thought each of the main characters is straight out of Central Casting.

 

Vicky (Rebecca Hall – the actress, not the retro-folk siren who fronts Hungrytown) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are trendoids on vacation in Barcelona. Vicky is putting the finishing touches on her masters thesis on Catalan Identity, likes nice boys and has a stick up her ass. Cristina, who’s just spent the past year writing, directing and acting in a twelve-minute film that she now despises, is something of a restless spirit who likes her men bad. Lecherous painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) picks up the two in a bistro after considerable coaxing and takes them to Oviedo for the weekend. It takes considerably less coaxing to get Cristina to jump into bed with him, but things don’t work out so he overcomes staggering odds (go, Javier!) and hooks up with her vastly more conservative pal. Trouble is, Vicky is scheduled to be married and move to a nice house in status-grubbing Bedford Hills in Westchester Country with her materialistic yuppie fiancé Doug (played to the hilt by Tim Reedy lookalike Chris Messina).

 

After the weekend, Juan Antonio predictably doesn’t call Vicky back. But he does call Cristina, who ends up moving in with him. Things are going swimmingly until suddenly his ex-wife/stalker/bête noir Maria Elena (a luminous and completely over-the-top hilarious Penelope Cruz) moves in with them after a failed suicide attempt. After a few bumps in the road, the three get along marvelously, marvelously well (Doug’s reaction to news of their, um, relationship is priceless). But Vicky hasn’t forgotten her lost weekend with Juan Antonio and is having second thoughts about a comfortable life in suburbia. Then someone unexpectedly breaks character and throws a wrench in the works.

 

While Vicky has seemingly reached the brink of self-actualization, Cristina, encouraged boisterously by Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, finds her muse in the camera’s lens. Allen’s satire disappears for most of the second half of the film while his characters struggle to find some depth, but it returns with a vengeance in the seconds before the credits roll. Vicky Cristina Barcelona doesn’t shoot for the lofty, philosophical heights of Allen’s peak, late 70s period, but it’s a lot of fun nonetheless. Put it on your Netflix list or see it when it hits the cable channels in a few weeks.