Chigurh Shack | Scarlett Johansson expresses relief that Javier Bardem has changed his hairdo in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
Directed by Woody Allen. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, Penélope Cruz. Opens Fri, Aug. 15.
***
Vicky doesn’t know what she wants. Cristina knows what she doesn’t want. Barcelona doesn’t want either of them to go home happy. There you go. You’ve seen the movie.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the latest film from Woody Allen (although the trailer does its best to hide that fact). It’s the story of Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who are spending the summer in Barcelona at the posh home of rich family friends. Vicky is researching her master’s thesis on “Catalan cultural identity” and Cristina wants to figure out what do after completing the 12-minute film she spent the last year working on. Getting the picture here? Curious, hot, WASPy turistas looking for a “counter-intuitive love.”
Unfortunately, everything gets turned upside down when they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a painter and, as Vicky describes him, “a charmingly candid wife-beater.” It gets even more complicated when the wife, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz) re-enters the picture.
Johansson gives her usual slightly ethereal sex-kitten performance, and Rebecca Hall does a lot of wide-eyed nervous tittering, especially around insipidly upwardly mobile fiancé Doug (Chris Messina). The worst thing that I can say about her performance is that I spent most of the movie thinking she was Rachel McAdams. Javier Bardem wanders through the movie acting like I pretty much expect he does in real life—all bedroom eyes and slouchy intensity. And Cruz once again proves that she can only act in the Spanish (or Catalan) language.
There’s no getting around the fact that this is a talky movie. No action, no big stunts. In fact, if you’re not fluent in English with at least a BA, you might not get it. You know you’re in a Woody Allen movie when one character protests, “Let’s not get into one of those turgid categorical imperative arguments!”
This could be another insipid chick flick, but Allen manages to inject some meaningful thought and discussion into the movie (as he usually does). He seems to be enjoying his expatriate status (although he’s returning to New York for next year’s Whatever Works). This is his fourth picture in a row to be filmed outside the U.S.—in this case, glorious Barcelona. The Catalan capital rightfully gets title billing here. Damn, it’s gorgeous, despite the haze that sits over the city. Beats the mierda out of Madrid. This is not the Olympics’ Barcelona, or even Whit Stillman’s. Okay, it’s pretty close to Whit Stillman’s. It’s full of confused white bourgeois Americans living la vida loca and keeping secrets, in any case.
It’s easy to see why anyone would be attracted to Hall and Johansson, but I have to admit that Bardem’s Latin lover bit leaves me a little cold. But Vicky Cristina Barcelona is really more of a love letter to Spain instead of the erotic meanderings of rich twentysomethings that it wants to be. So just accept it as that, admit that Woody Allen isn’t that much of a hack, and enjoy it as pseudo-intellectual cotton candy.
But don’t forget to pronounce it “Bar-tha-lona” when you call the travel agent.
