Woody Allen Goes on Vacation

Rating: 2/10 (18 February 2011)

Vicky Christina Barcelona may be the laziest movie I have ever seen. Not necessarily the worst movie ever, but I don't think I have ever seen so many talented people put in so little effort (with the exception of Penelope Cruz). I mean, I fully understand why Woody Allen would want to spend several weeks in Barcelona with three beautiful women, but I don't know why he bothered to put film in the camera and call it a movie.
The central hope of the movie is that constant references to Gaudi, Miro, and how Vicky is getting her masters in Catalan identity (BTW, if you Google "masters in Catalan identity" EVERY result is about this movie, which tells you how bogus that is) will distract you from the fact that this movie basically recycles the two most tired clichés of late-nineties soft-core porn: Sexually conservative woman meets a tall, dark stranger who makes her question her life AND sexually adventuresome woman meets a tall, dark stranger who helps her experience increasingly exotic thrills including (gasp!) lesbianism. Strangely these two plots never really intersect, which is particularly odd since the tall, dark stranger is the same for both of them.
Other than the pretty Tourist Board shots of Barcelona, the main dramatic thrust of the movie is how Vicky thought she had her life planned out, but a tryst with the exotic Spaniard has made her question everything. How do we know this? Because Vicky actually says things like "I thought I had my life planned out, but" And not just once, but she says it to the Spaniard, she says it to Patricia Clarkson, and she says it to a classmate from her language class, who is introduced for the sole purpose of giving Vicky one more person that she can tell. Oh, and in case you still missed it, there is a ludicrously intrusive narrator who explains it all to you again and again. Why is Vicky suddenly dissatisfied with her entire existence after one quick roll in the grass with the Spaniard? No real reason is ever given, other than that the rule of the cliché is that intelligent American women are all sexually repressed with boorish husbands.
I'm sure that the stilted dialog is meant to make it feel "theatrical" and the oppressively obvious and distracting narrator is meant to be ironic (like the Greek Chorus in Mighty Aphrodite), but without any real plot, characters, or motivations, it just adds to the sensation that you're trapped for ninety minutes while someone tells you about a mediocre movie they once saw.