Good movie partially undone by terrible narration

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2012)

I almost stopped watching this movie at the 10 minutes mark. That first ten minutes was pretty much nothing but a narration of events by someone who sounded like he was doing a Power Point presentation on economics. I don't know why Allen felt the film needed a bland American narrator, but he did. The truth is, Allen himself would have been a far better choice; when he speaks, he sounds like he means something by it.
The narration, of which there is a great deal, is also almost entirely unnecessary; you could cut it out all of the movie and you would still know pretty much was going on. The narrator says nothing about the characters that you can't glean from their actions, and I would think Allen has been around long enough to have heard of "show don't tell."
However, since my girlfriend said she loved the movie I decided to keep going, and once the narrator took a pause and the characters started talking, they were pretty interesting (in fact, more interesting than the glib assessments given by the narrator). The story has the typically messy romantic tangles Allen is so fond of and it's interesting to see it play out. The actors are all very good, each making their characters likable. Sure, everyone in the movie is little more than a stereotype (tempestuous Spanish woman, free spirit, over- planned American), but the actors make these characters more interesting than they really are.
While neither deep nor especially effecting, the movie is, when the narrator isn't speaking, quite charming, offering a romantic vision of Spain and a story that keeps moving even if not a lot ever happens. Cut out the narrator and it would probably deserve to be rated one star higher.