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52 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Woody Allen Finds His Muse in Barcelona., August 18, 2008
"In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now. The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films."--Woody Allen.
Woody Allen has said that European audiences are more receptive to his films these days than American audiences. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) is his fourth European movie, and in many ways his most French film yet. Set in Avilés, Barcelona, and Oviedo, Vicky Cristina Barcelona follows Allen's London films, Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006), and Cassandra's Dream (2007). It stars Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Patricia Clarkson, and Penélope Cruz (Volver), and tells the story of a lovers' threesome. Shortly after arriving in Barcelona on vacation, two young American women in their 20s, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Johansson), are invited by a smooth-talking artist, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) to spend a weekend in Oviedo, drinking wine and making love with him. Because she is engaged to be married, pragmatic Vicky is reluctant at first. Cristina, however, is open to the seduction. The two women accept Juan Antonio's proposal, and accompany him to Oviedo, where they soon discover the painter has a thing for his beautiful, but emotionally unstable estranged-wife, María Elena (Cruz). After Juan and Vicky drink wine and make love, Cristina, Juan, and María Elena soon find themselves living together. It becomes evident to Cristina that Juan Antonio and María Elena are still madly in love with each other. Bardem and Cruz bring a chemistry to the screen that sizzles. Ultimately, the film then becomes a fascinating Woody Allen meets Éric Rohmer (Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales - Criterion Collection) meets Pedro Almodóvar (Volver) exploration of the dynamics of this sexually free-spirited lovers' threesome, contrasted by Vicky's more conventional relationship with her dull, New York buttoned-down love interest, Doug (Chris Messina). Just as Manhattan was central to Manhattan, Barcelona features prominantly in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, especially Gaudí's Park Güell. Much like a good French film, this brilliant movie ends on a note that is both poignant and sad, with everyone a little wiser in the end. Once the celluloid love poet of Manhattan, with Vicky Cristina Barcelona Allen reveals he is much wiser now when it comes to the ways of the heart. It is "a very sad film" (as Allen calls it) only because of the message it sends about relationships. Some couples settle for convention rather than the madness of real love. Others, like Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, experience real love with the level of chemistry we might call "soulmates," only to find they cannot live together. To use an old cliche, Juan Antonio can't live with Maria Elena, but can't live without her. Allen seems to suggest that all we can really hope for in the end, after stumbling around in any relationship, is a little wisdom. Dare I say that this is Woody Allen's best work since Hannah and Her Sisters? Unlike that film, however, this is a really good film Allen could have never made in Hollywood, which generally prefers feel-good love stories with happily-ever-after endings.
12/05/08 Update: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Jarvier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, and Penélope Cruz all received nods for Golden Globe Awards this week.
G. Merritt
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
You can't EVER get what you want..., September 7, 2008
In "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Woody Allen begs to contradict another pundit of his age, Mick Jagger. Woody demonstrates in his latest movie that you can't EVER get what you want, and you also can't get what you need. He demonstrates this in the story of how Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), two lovely young Americans staying in Barcelona for a few months, react to the romantic overtures of the dashing, primally sexy artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Vicky--a master's candidate in "Catalan identity," although she is not Catalan and barely speaks Catalan or even Spanish--finds that sex with Juan Antonio shakes up her previously solid feelings for her dullish American fiance, Doug (Chris Messina). Cristina--a dilettantish photographer/filmmaker who is defined by the fact that she only knows what she DOESN'T want in a relationship with a man--finds greater satisfaction with Juan Antonio, at least until Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), Juan Antonio's volatile, insanely jealous ex-wife, shows up.
Some critics have opined that "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a hackneyed blast at naive Americans left at sea by European sexual sophistication. However, I think it's more a delineation of Woody's basic belief that happiness in love is transitory at best. How can you possibly hold up Juan Antonio and Maria Elena--who are constantly at each other's throats, to the point that Maria Elena brandishes knives and guns--as an example of sexual sophistication? They can't live with each other, they can't live without each other, but she may end up killing him, herself, and a few innocent bystanders. As enacted in a scintillating performance by Cruz, Maria Elena embodies the eternal irrationality of love, a blind craziness that--at least in Woody's view--stamps an irrevocable expiration date on even the tenderest, most ardent love.
Not quite a comedy but certainly not a tragedy, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a rueful commentary on the constant dissatisfactions of love and life, made all the more bittersweet by the heartbreakingly beautiful scenes of Barcelona and Catalunya wrapped in golden light by photographer Javier Aguirresarobe. The film offers us multiple pleasures--not least the excellent performances--yet, in the end, it feels slight. There are too many of Woody's familiar tropes for us to take the film at face value, especially the overly familiar characters; personally, I'm tired of the gorgeous, nubile young "Woody women" who are drawn vaguely toward a career in the arts yet are completely confused about everything except their need for hot sex. And, yes, Woody, we got the point decades ago that you consider life and the Universe meaningless; why do you always have to have one character in every movie (in this case, Juan Antonio) declare that belief baldly? "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is worth seeing, but it falls short of being one of Woody's masterpieces.
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Americans, September 16, 2008
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA is a film about youth, about self-discovery, and about the anything goes freedom and spontaneity that Americans feel (or try to feel) when far from their own homeland and therefore liberated from their own cultures notions about love and life. Abroad one escapes the tyranny of ingrained convention and habits of mind and one gives oneself permission to experience another version of self and life in another land, or such is the promise of travel.
The problem with Vicky and Cristina (and perhaps with this film) is that Barcelona does not really liberate either of them from anything. Both seem too self-conscious and/or too self-occupied to step outside themselves and what they know. Both have a comfort level with themselves and each other that is never breeched. And so although Barcelona promises and delivers a certain amount of adventure, it does not really deliver either girl from themselves. During their stay, they are exposed to a passionate Spanish culture and introduced to a fiery tempered Spaniard but ultimately they both make the same kinds of choices that they made back home. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) has always been an impulsive free spirit who starts things, loses interest, and does not finish them. It does not matter what country she is in, she is the same, and so the Spanish trip ultimately changes nothing for her. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) has always been conservative in matters of life and love. Although she is attracted to others that feel things and act on those feelings (like her friend Cristina) Vicky does not altogether trust emotions and is afraid to have them and, therefore, is never certain what she feels or if she feels anything at all. Vicky is very much like a classic Henry James male and she is driven by the same fear that drives James' male characters which is a fear that they are missing out on life. Although engaged before she embarks on her Spanish holiday, and apparently immune from the advances of strangers, she, nonetheless, remains fearful that she is missing out on something. Its really only when her friend enjoys a spontaneous summer with the painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) and his former lover Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) that she wishes that she too could live so passionately, so recklessly. The fact that she holds everything in is what makes her so alluring to the passion-drunk Juan Antonio. But she is who she is, neither Spain nor Juan Antonio have the power to changer her.
And so there is something sad about this trip (and this film). Woody Allen is one of the few directors who gives us genuinely interesting characters and stories and that should be applauded. In this film the two main characters, Vicky and Cristina, are ultimately incapable of being anything but who they are and who they are is Vicky and Cristina. Whether Woody thinks that their inability to live or think outside of their own comfort zone is an affliction that is peculiarly American is not exactly clear, but likely. Marie Elena's view of the Americans is that they are too self-involved to really live. Of course Maria Elena who does allow herself to live also opens herself up to suffering. I'm guessing that with Vicky Cristina Barcelona Woody is perhaps analyzing the American psyche (which is what he does best) and that what he finds is a psyche that is firmly rooted in and addicted to self and that resists any kind of self-surrender. This seems to be the sober reflection of an artist who has seen and contemplated America and Americans for many years.
Despite the location this is a very sober film and, despite a few well-placed laughs, also a very somber one.
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