Zelig-ing Almodóvar...and quite well

Rating: 8/10 (16 August 2008)

Fans of Woody Allen have gotten used to him "honoring" other directors (Fellini, Bergman, Hitchcock), but I'm not sure any other director could get away with what he does. Woody Allen's talent has always been as a writer, and in this outing, he writes. Perhaps over-writes. The voice over narration digests a lot of the circumstances here that I think the audience would have be capable of doing and become more involved had it been omitted. This is a gorgeous film, well-edited, fully developed in its analysis of a well-worn path (that would be "love"), and I wished Allen would have trusted what he'd put together.
It's a rip-off of several Almodóvar films, "Talk to Her" being the most "honored." While both films share the same cinematographer, I think this movie rises a level above Almodóvar's film visually. And what a beautiful setting this is.
Surprisingly, the weakest element of the film is in the performances of the two leads of the title, Vicky (a lanky Rebecca West) and Christina (the beautiful Scarlett Johansson). You could accuse Allen of losing his ear in some of the exchanges between the two which sound reluctant and improvised. But others in the cast do very (very) well.
Patricia Clarkson needs to be in every movie made. She brings such conviction to any role. Putting "sexy" back in his work after "No Country for Old Men," Javier Bardem is not only watchable, but quite believable as the hedonist who threads the women in this film around his, uh, finger.
And then God created Penélope Cruz (let's all give thanks). Funny and tragic at the same time is quite a feat, but she pulls it off effortlessly here proving her work in Almodóvar's "Volver" wasn't a fluke. Any time she's on the screen only Bardem matches her acting. We're left wondering (as Cruz' character wonders) what can Bardem possibly see in these two American tourists?
I almost skipped this film, but it was quite enjoyable at every level. It's Woody Allen's most successful work in years. While "Match Point" was fun, it was plot heavy. And let's face it, no one talks the way people talk in a Woody Allen film. But here his graduate school dialectic is appropriate for the two leads, who are immersed in their degrees. By the end of the film a lot of the stuffing has been knocked out of those who believe matters of the heart can either be measured and weighed or bear no consequence to the participants, and it's welcome to see Allen turn the tables on those who over-intellectualize the Universeand love.