Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Directed by Woody Allen
Two girlfriends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.
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In lieu of tackling a straightforward comedy or drama this time, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" takes inspiration from the works of Eric Rohmer (1983's " Pauline at the Beach ") in its naturalistic slice-of-life look at two young women still trying to decide what they want to make of their futures.
Compare this performance with her roles in "Elegy" and "Volver ," for example, and you see that Cruz has a much wider range than her eye-candy reputation suggests.
Much of what's best here is brought by the actors, especially sloe-eyed Bardem and the excitingly maniacal Cruz, who's as good as she was in "Volver."
After struggling with English-language crap like Sahara, Cruz has quietly given three stunning performances in Volver (which she should have won the Oscar for), a movie that opens next week that I’m still technically embargo-ed on, and this incredible role.
Cruz has displayed her versatility before -- especially in Volver - and here her fiery Spanish insensibility works perfectly as the catalyst.
Writer/director Woody Allen ("Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream") has assembled one of his most unusual casts for his latest, European set film and his combination of recent favorite (Scarlett Johansson, "Scoop," "The Black Dahlia"), new discovery (Rebecca Hall, "Starter for 10," "The Prestige") and local blood (Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men" and (Penélope Cruz, "Volver") sizzles and sparks.
Cruz and Bardem, who have a history together - the erotically charged 1992 Spanish import, Jamón, Jamón, and Pedro Almodovar's 1997 gem, Live Flesh - turn what could have been a cartoon rendering of hot-blooded Latin passion into a seriously unpredictable relationship.
Allen revels in Barcelona, photographing (cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe, "Talk to Her," "The Sea Inside") all the relevant points of interest, paying special attention to the architecture of Antoni Gaudí.
As he often has done in the past decade, Allen gave his cinematographer (Javier Aguirresarobe, who shot "Talk to Her") plenty of leeway, and Aguirresarobe delivers stunning vistas of Barcelona, golden close-ups of the attractive cast and lush splashes of pink flowers.
His cinematographer this time is Javier Aguirresarobe, best known for The Others , Talk to Her and The Sea Inside .
Allen appears in perfect concert with the Spanish locations, graciously revealing the beauty of the land through the master shooting of cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“Talk to Her,” “The Sea Inside”), filling the frame with golden Euro delights.
Plus, the cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe (of Talk to Her and The Sea Inside ) is actually well-thought out and significant, unheard of in a Woody Allen film; looking somewhat like a sun-washed Almodóvar film, the palette is full of colors muted into shades of gold and yellow.
Their early encounters ought to suggest so; she and Juan Carlos possess all the spit and vigor of some of the more legendary movie relationships (some of the dialogue mirrors the tone of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”), and Maria is hardly quiet about her initial disdain for this strange new woman in her former husband’s life.
Writer/director Woody Allen ("Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream") has assembled one of his most unusual casts for his latest, European set film and his combination of recent favorite (Scarlett Johansson, "Scoop," "The Black Dahlia"), new discovery (Rebecca Hall, "Starter for 10," "The Prestige") and local blood (Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men" and (Penélope Cruz, "Volver") sizzles and sparks.
Javier Bardem plays Juan Antonio, and anyone who has yet to forget his grim exploits in "No Country for Old Men" might feel inclined to tell these two to run for their lives.
As Juan Antonio, Javier Bardem (2007's " No Country for Old Men ") is appropriately sensual, but also likable, which is important in plausibly setting up why Vicky and Cristina are so drawn to him.
Looking every inch the smoldering Latin lover, he is having the time of his life inhabiting a Valentino stereotype at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from his psychotic killer in "No Country for Old Men."
Bardem’s natural-born lover—a painter, by trade—is as devastating as his natural-born killer in “No Country for Old Men.” He’s almost criminally attractive—soft-spoken and erudite, decent in his way but relentless, a Don Juan brought back to life as an English-speaking charmer.
While at times you’ll easily predict when sex is on deck, Allen uses “No Country for Old Men” star Javier Bardem literally as his blunt instrument.
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Also, many reviewers who have carped about the narration of Christopher Evan Welch in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, do not realize that Allen is using the late Francois Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962) as a major source.
For that matter, who but Allen would manage to make a film in Barcelona where the protagonists end up at a screening of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) at the local repertory cinema?
The side trip and its emotional aftermath are not unlike Deborah Kerr's change of heart toward Cary Grant's playboy in "An Affair to Remember" after a visit to his grandmother.
Cruz and Bardem, who have a history together - the erotically charged 1992 Spanish import, Jamón, Jamón, and Pedro Almodovar's 1997 gem, Live Flesh - turn what could have been a cartoon rendering of hot-blooded Latin passion into a seriously unpredictable relationship.
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Still, he was never quite as appealing back then as when he worked in purely Woody Allen territory -- it's hard to imagine movies like Zelig, Hannah and her Sisters, and Radio Days springing from anyone else's brain.
With able support from Patricia Clarkson, as a family friend of Vicky's, living in Spain and living in pain over her own unhappy marriage, Vicky Cristina Barcelona covers familiar Allen territory: Like Husbands and Wives, Hannah and Her Sisters, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and the list can go on and on, Allen's latest offers an exploration of romantic longing, of men and women falling in and out of love, behaving foolishly, and badly.
The characters move as if on a carousel, making the film an exploration of romantic complications on the level of "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and "Husbands and Wives" (1992).
This isn’t the specialized sadness of an intricately plotted film like Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).
It's literally difficult to believe that the person who made this picturesque, clueless, oddly misanthropic picture also made "Annie Hall" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
His last few films -- Scoop, Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream -- couldn’t hold a light to, say, Manhattan, but at least they didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending , from the early 2000s, did.
For years, the young women in Allen's films - Mariel Hemingway in "Manhattan," Juliette Lewis in "Husbands and Wives," Natasha Lyonne in "Everyone Says I Love You" - actually seemed young.
Allen's discovery of Europe (of London, Paris, Venice, Barcelona) has provided new opportunities for the poet of Manhattan (and " Manhattan ").
One could certainly argue that the upper-middle-class Upper East Side of "Manhattan" or "Hannah and Her Sisters" was minimally connected to life in the real New York or anywhere else.
Instead they will concentrate on the official classics, especially Annie Hall and Manhattan, and on Allen's amazingly predictable productivity: since the mid-70s he has averaged a film a year as writer-director.
It's neither the droll Woody of Bananas or Bullets over Broadway, nor the high drama of say, Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Allen has always viewed sex as vaguely embarrassing sport – recall his undercover escapade with Louise Lasser in Bananas, with Howard Cosell calling the play-by-play – but his visit to sensual Barcelona has emboldened him.
Of all the recent Allen movies, Vicky Cristina Barcelona most reminds me of Melinda and Melinda , partly because it isn't a "bad" movie (Jade Scorpion and Anything Else inarguably are) so much as a stalwart mediocrity, but moreso because the conceptual point of departure sits flagrantly on the screen, barking out its rudimentary recipe without bringing that recipe to life.
Like most of Allen's best work, Vicky Cristina straddles the line between comedy and drama; the writer-director explored this notion at great and obvious length in Melinda and Melinda , but here is more subtle with a story about real human confusion and anguish over the nature of relationships that just so happens to also make you laugh most of the time.
This essential cowardice of Allen's, even more off-putting than the clichéd but vociferous artist-as-cad theses of Sweet and Lowdown and Deconstructing Harry , also helps to explain his enduring fascination with Johansson, an actress who lately forebears from doing any acting.
In Deconstructing Harry (1997), he began using copious foul language.
Woody fans expecting a return to the enjoyable chuckles of Manhattan Murder Mystery and Deconstructing Harry should brace themselves for another indulgent, gossamer thin love story orbiting around current Allen muse Scarlett Johansson.
Going where the money is, Allen has moved his latest production from London to Barcelona, where the sunny landscape and Antoni Gaudi's spectacular architecture seem to have provided the inspiration he's largely been lacking since, say, "Deconstructing Harry."
He reacted fairly quickly to the trend, as 1997's Deconstructing Harry played like a deliberate effort to close the door on one aspect of his career -- the scrupulously neurotic screen character he created over so many years and so many films.
Written and directed by Woody Allen, Annie Hall details the ups and downs of a tumultuous relationship between Allen's Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton's title character - with the movie boasting a number of oddball cutaways and absurd moments of comedy.
It's literally difficult to believe that the person who made this picturesque, clueless, oddly misanthropic picture also made "Annie Hall" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
But by the time he finished Annie Hall -- that funny-sad catalog of life lived and lessons learned -- Allen was into his 40s and showing the emotional wear and tear of every year.
Instead they will concentrate on the official classics, especially Annie Hall and Manhattan, and on Allen's amazingly predictable productivity: since the mid-70s he has averaged a film a year as writer-director.
I’m talking the Annie Hall years when he focused on talky, neurotic New Yorkers in perpetual therapy.
Especially if you scratch "Scoop" and "Cassandra's Dream" from the record and consider just this and "Match Point."
Trading the chilly shores of Great Britain for a tourist's vision of idyllic Spain, the new film is Allen's second best of the decade after 2005's Match Point and easily the most fun movie he's made since at least Small Time Crooks back in 2000; hardly a second coming for a man whose career will obviously never return to the heights of the long-passed 1970s, but a pleasing and fairly smart film that reveals an unexpected willingness on Allen's part to finally stretch beyond endless copying of the triumphs of his middle-age.
After shooting three movies in a row in England ("Match Point," "Scoop" and "Cassandra's Dream") the notoriously Manhattan-bound Woody Allen continues his European vacation with a stop in Spain for the comedic romantic drama "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
Writer/director Woody Allen ("Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream") has assembled one of his most unusual casts for his latest, European set film and his combination of recent favorite (Scarlett Johansson, "Scoop," "The Black Dahlia"), new discovery (Rebecca Hall, "Starter for 10," "The Prestige") and local blood (Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men" and (Penélope Cruz, "Volver") sizzles and sparks.
For more than a decade, Woody had been coasting, making mediocrities such as Scoop (2006) and Cassandra Dreaming (2007).
That she fell shy of the dramatic and comic figures that Allen cut out for her in Match Point and Scoop was mostly to be expected; that she's such a wan placeholder for inert sensuality, seemingly her stock in trade, is dolorous indeed.
He's appeared in only one of these films ("Scoop"), but you can feel him wandering around these cities in bad shorts and a floppy sun hat, holding up a map.
None of the three movies to reach theaters after it have come close to achieving an equal plateau, although this latest effort, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is a step up from its immediate predecessors, Scoop and Cassandra's Dream .
After shooting three movies in a row in England ("Match Point," "Scoop" and "Cassandra's Dream") the notoriously Manhattan-bound Woody Allen continues his European vacation with a stop in Spain for the comedic romantic drama "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
A "comeback" film like Bullets over Broadway was possible because he hadn't actually gone anywhere or sapped his wells of inspiration in the years preceding.
It's neither the droll Woody of Bananas or Bullets over Broadway, nor the high drama of say, Crimes and Misdemeanors.
I don't suppose it's categorically impossible for Allen one day to recover the ingenuity and reserves of feeling, whether gentle ( Purple Rose ) or bitter ( Husbands and Wives ), which once suffused his movies, but I can't see a single sign that this will ever happen?neither in the films he's been making nor in the touristic, lackadaisical, tortuously financed way he now makes them.
Starting with Husbands and Wives (his last film with Farrow), Allen began experimenting with hand-held cameras.
For years, the young women in Allen's films - Mariel Hemingway in "Manhattan," Juliette Lewis in "Husbands and Wives," Natasha Lyonne in "Everyone Says I Love You" - actually seemed young.
His direction hasn't been as light-footed since 1996's musical "Everyone Says I Love You" and his cinematic relationships haven't felt as meaningful since 1992's "Husbands and Wives."
With able support from Patricia Clarkson, as a family friend of Vicky's, living in Spain and living in pain over her own unhappy marriage, Vicky Cristina Barcelona covers familiar Allen territory: Like Husbands and Wives, Hannah and Her Sisters, Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and the list can go on and on, Allen's latest offers an exploration of romantic longing, of men and women falling in and out of love, behaving foolishly, and badly.
The characters move as if on a carousel, making the film an exploration of romantic complications on the level of "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and "Husbands and Wives" (1992).
He was in his 30s when he made Take the Money and Run, which was followed by a series of singularly literate knockabout comedies.
I prefer his really early stuff (like Take the Money and Run) or his more recent stuff (like Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Match Point), where he was working outside of the box.
Writer/director Woody Allen ("Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream") has assembled one of his most unusual casts for his latest, European set film and his combination of recent favorite (Scarlett Johansson, "Scoop," "The Black Dahlia"), new discovery (Rebecca Hall, "Starter for 10," "The Prestige") and local blood (Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men" and (Penélope Cruz, "Volver") sizzles and sparks.
The actors make Allen's dialogue seem much more natural than, say, Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell did in Allen's "Cassandra's Dream."
It’s Allen moving away from the monumentally sobering “Cassandra’s Dream,” but “Vicky,” with its documentarian feel, plays matters slightly more chilled than expected.
And only once, in the very good "Cassandra's Dream," have the moral and emotional trappings of the trip compelled him to take some risks.
None of the three movies to reach theaters after it have come close to achieving an equal plateau, although this latest effort, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is a step up from its immediate predecessors, Scoop and Cassandra's Dream .
After shooting three movies in a row in England ("Match Point," "Scoop" and "Cassandra's Dream") the notoriously Manhattan-bound Woody Allen continues his European vacation with a stop in Spain for the comedic romantic drama "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
This frenetic searching has been going on for so long that Allen spoofed it in 1980's "Stardust Memories," having aliens from outer space yearn for "the early, funny ones."
He followed it up with the strenuously dour Interiors (quoting Bergman, for God's sake), and later the Fellini pastiche Stardust Memories, but he remained light on his feet.
For a time, "Barcelona" plays like Mr. Allen's 1982 trifle "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy", all lightness and flirtation.
Trading the chilly shores of Great Britain for a tourist's vision of idyllic Spain, the new film is Allen's second best of the decade after 2005's Match Point and easily the most fun movie he's made since at least Small Time Crooks back in 2000; hardly a second coming for a man whose career will obviously never return to the heights of the long-passed 1970s, but a pleasing and fairly smart film that reveals an unexpected willingness on Allen's part to finally stretch beyond endless copying of the triumphs of his middle-age.
Still, he was never quite as appealing back then as when he worked in purely Woody Allen territory -- it's hard to imagine movies like Zelig, Hannah and her Sisters, and Radio Days springing from anyone else's brain.
For years, the young women in Allen's films - Mariel Hemingway in "Manhattan," Juliette Lewis in "Husbands and Wives," Natasha Lyonne in "Everyone Says I Love You" - actually seemed young.
His direction hasn't been as light-footed since 1996's musical "Everyone Says I Love You" and his cinematic relationships haven't felt as meaningful since 1992's "Husbands and Wives."
Though Allen himself hasn’t exactly been all over the map, the lifelong New Yorker has branched out since 1996’s Everyone Says I Love You shot in Venice and Paris.
Something about Barcelona - the architecture, the people, the food and wine - brought to life a quality that's been dormant in Mr. Allen's films quite possibly since 1996, when he tried his hand at the musical genre with "Everyone Says I Love You".
In 1978 in creating the stark Interiors, Woody accessed Ingmar Bergman.
Anyway, back on topic: I've never been a big fan of Woody Allen's work, although some of his earlier movies (Sleeper, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex) had some really good bits.
This essential cowardice of Allen's, even more off-putting than the clichéd but vociferous artist-as-cad theses of Sweet and Lowdown and Deconstructing Harry , also helps to explain his enduring fascination with Johansson, an actress who lately forebears from doing any acting.
The last great Allen movie was 2005's " Match Point ", before that you'd have to look back to 1999's underappreciated " Sweet and Lowdown ".
Still, he was never quite as appealing back then as when he worked in purely Woody Allen territory -- it's hard to imagine movies like Zelig, Hannah and her Sisters, and Radio Days springing from anyone else's brain.
Allen, sadly, hasn't shown any real empathy since Alice, which was almost 20 years ago.
Woody fans expecting a return to the enjoyable chuckles of Manhattan Murder Mystery and Deconstructing Harry should brace themselves for another indulgent, gossamer thin love story orbiting around current Allen muse Scarlett Johansson.
His last few films -- Scoop, Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream -- couldn’t hold a light to, say, Manhattan, but at least they didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending , from the early 2000s, did.
His last few films -- Scoop, Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream -- couldn’t hold a light to, say, Manhattan, but at least they didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending , from the early 2000s, did.
Allen revels in Barcelona, photographing (cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe, "Talk to Her," "The Sea Inside") all the relevant points of interest, paying special attention to the architecture of Antoni Gaudí.
His cinematographer this time is Javier Aguirresarobe, best known for The Others , Talk to Her and The Sea Inside .
Allen appears in perfect concert with the Spanish locations, graciously revealing the beauty of the land through the master shooting of cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“Talk to Her,” “The Sea Inside”), filling the frame with golden Euro delights.
Plus, the cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe (of Talk to Her and The Sea Inside ) is actually well-thought out and significant, unheard of in a Woody Allen film; looking somewhat like a sun-washed Almodóvar film, the palette is full of colors muted into shades of gold and yellow.
His cinematographer this time is Javier Aguirresarobe, best known for The Others , Talk to Her and The Sea Inside .
The picture works as a travelogue?Barcelona and the surrounding areas of Spain are captured by cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (2001's " The Others ") in all of their sun-dappled, intoxicating, old-world grandeur?and it also works, at least most of the time, as a multilayered romance between people testing their own boundaries and values as they relate to sex and relationships.