Woody Allen's sexy, breezy comedy is his best movie in years, writes MICHAEL DWYER
THE LATEST Woody Allen movie takes on that enduring narrative staple featuring fish-out-of-water protagonists temporarily transplanted to exotic locations, where they learn more about themselves during an eventful holiday than they would have gleaned in years of everyday life back home.
Just as American friends Vicky and Cristina are revitalised by their sojourn in Barcelona, so, too, is Allen, who revels in this stimulating setting and produces his most consistently entertaining movie in years.
Adhering to the familiar traditions of this particular subset of the romantic comedy genre, the characters, visitors and locals in Vicky Cristina Barcelonaare introduced as stereotypical representations of their backgrounds, although Allen gradually probes somewhat deeper.
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) visit Barcelona as guests of Vicky’s relatives (Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Dunn). Engaged to be married to a corporate type (Chris Messina) in New York, Vicky is practical and level-headed, or so she thinks. She is working on a thesis addressing Catalan identity, but neither she nor the movie seems too concerned with pursuing that path.
As is de rigueur, Cristina seems her polar opposite, impetuous, free-spirited and flirtatious. An aspirant film-maker, Cristina has squandered 12 months making and acting in a 12-minute movie “on why love is so hard to define”, a theme that has preoccupied more than a few Woody Allen creations.
Cristina is open to adventure, and that opportunity arises within days, when handsome Spanish painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) responds to her irrepressible eye contact. It goes without saying that he is earthy, sensual and seductive, and within minutes of meeting Vicky and Cristina, he suggests a threesome in the Asturian town of Oviedo.
Juan, however, has not recovered from the traumatic break-up of his marriage to Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz), whose fiery temperament and volatile personality have been well flagged before she eventually makes her entrance. To describe that as dramatic would be an understatement.
The complicated consequences for this quartet are unravelled with spirit and energy, and peppered with witty one-liners, in Allen’s neatly structured scenario as it turns agreeably unpredictable. The pace is so breezy that it sweeps the viewer along, and the use of wry narration, delivered by an unseen, worldly-wise observer (Christopher Evan Welch), adds to the propulsive rhythm.
In a cast that sparkles, Hall is a radiant discovery, Johansson’s performance is refreshingly loose, Bardem is admirably deadpan, and Cruz chews up all the scenery with aplomb.
On the subject of scenery and in another genre convention, the director, through the eyes of the tourist visitors, swoons over the ample sights and distinctive architecture of the city, which are handsomely lit by Javier Aguirresarobe, and it would not have been out of place to have given Gaudí a credit for production design.
