What a waste

Rating: 2/10 (27 January 2012)

So, if we ever doubted how important a director is to getting the best out of actors, here's the proof. In the hands of Almodovar, with his rightly favoured stars of Barden and Cruz, this could - and possibly would - have been a fantastic tale of emotion & confusion. As it is, we get two of the brightest stars of Euro cinema reduced to 2-D pastiches of "passion", with astonishingly pointless & witless dialogue.
Woody - you were better than this. We all know you're past your prime, but why don't YOU accept it, & go back to the style when you had a lightness of touch, wit, and verve?
Scarlett - the camera loves you, but you're gutless without someone behind it who knows what they're doing. Woody ain't it. OK, I thought "Lost in Translation" was abysmal, but that's because I'm not entertained by superior imperial racist crap. You were fab in "Girl with a Pearl Earring", because it was about your stillness & inner radiance. Try taking a few REAL chances rather than going, ooo, this might make me look edgy. For now you're just a curvy Keira.
Bardem, Cruz - learn from this. Neither of you have anything to prove, after all. So don't work with icons because they're icons from the past. Work with them because they turn out art in the present.