Woody Allen's Spanish Adventure

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2010)

Woody Allen is easily considered a great director, with films like Annie Hall and Manhattan being recognised as classics. But in his more recent efforts critics believed Allen has lost his mojo and his recent films have been set in London rather then his native New York. But critics consider Vicky Cristina Barcelona a return to form for the writer/director.
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are two friends from university who plan to spend the summer in Barcelona. Both are very different people, Vicky was a very grounded academic type who wants stability and a committed relationship, whilst Cristina sees herself as a artistic type, who wants to take risks when it comes to romance. Both meet up with the charming artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who takes them to the city Oviedo. Vicky does not like Juan Antonio whilst Cristina was very attached to him, but the three form a friendship as the 3 deal with relationship problems. Vicky being stuck with a stuffy, conservative man, Doug (Chris Messina) who seems to have no real adventure, Cristina has to do handle her drive to be artistic and self-destructive nature and Juan Antonio has a psychotic ex-wife, María Elena (Penélope Cruz).
Allen does write a script with drama and witty dialogue. The tone is down to Earth, with a light-hearted touch to it and colourful direction. The characters are well rounded, all with their own personal problems, even the well rounded Vicky. The characters are what makes the film interesting and makes you care about what happens to them. There is a good cast in the film, with Cruz and Bardem being the best of the lot. Both are very entertaining as the more extreme characters of the film. Hall and Johannson too perform well, this was one of Johannson's better performances. Allen himself is able to combine the ideas of people looking for exciting and creativity, whilst others want security. There are drawbacks to both of those and it is shown in the film.
Allen uses a narrator throughout the film, at times it gives the film a Kubrickian like quality in films like The Killing. But at other times in the narration is just used to skip over details that we need to see for ourselves, particularly the relationship between Juan Antonio and Cristina.
At times the film also felt hollow with it's talk about art and culture, with Cristina being pretty much a young female version of Allen. Whilst the characters themselves are interesting and the act as the main drive for the film, the plot itself is not remarkable, with moments of lack of focus. Ihe ending too felt rushed and was basically lacking some power that it should have. This's is what is preventing the film from gaining a higher rating but it does have moments of interest.