Woody en Espanol

Rating: 9/10 (25 August 2008)

Vicki (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) are the two main characters of Woody Allen's latest romantic comedy, but part of the ingenuity of the film is that the third name, Barcelona, is a character itself. Aside from the locales and hot-blooded, romantic atmosphere with Spanish guitars and wine in the night and gorgeous architecture during the day, which Allen and his DP capture wonderfully, the other characters Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) and Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) seem to spring out almost naturally out of this balmy city and country. It may be Allen's last international film for a while (according to reports his next film will be back to New York), but it's maybe the best at evoking this effect of a place on the characters (or, in spurts, its Jules and Jim inspiration).
Vicki and Cristina, as we learn from the Barry Lyndon-esquire authoritative narrator, are on leave from New York City in Barcelona for the summer, Vicki for studying purposes and Cristina as her friend whose looking for something new creatively after a bad acting experience and an ex-boyfriend. Almost immediately after shacking up with friends Judy and Mark (Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Dunn), Vicki and Cristina are approached one night by local painter Juan, who tempts them (or rather Cristina) with a week end in Obejo. Cristina falls for him immediately, but Vicki, already engaged to Doug (Messina) back in New York, is resistant to his charms - which, by the end of the week end, gives way to a passionate encounter.
But after this, there's more complications, and not just with Vicki and Juan (or the surprise arrival of Doug to Barcelona for an also surprise wedding) and their suppressed affections. There's also Juan's ex-wife, Maria, who had a volcanic relationship and who comes back into Juan's life while Cristina is staying with him. To say much more would reveal and spoil a lot more of the fun and romance and questions Allen raises about monogamy and the complacency of marriage. Which, on the surface, might not sound like the 72 year old filmmaker is pursuing anything new to cover, as he's explored marriage, infidelity, and, as Maria Elena says at one point to Cristina, chronic dissatisfaction with lovers.
And yet when it's at its best, and here's the surprising part, Vicki Cristina Barcelona is Allen's funniest, most intelligent and well-acted romantic comedy in many years, maybe even in this decade (which maybe isn't saying a lot since this and Match Point are the closest he's reached to greatness since the 90s). It works because of the actors dedication to the material: Cruz is a total tornado of a presence here, with this and Volver her best performances to date; Bardem, again, shows his layers in Juan as a man of romance and love and lust but also tenderness and humor and rage and all these things that show how great an actor he is; Hall is very good in a part that some actresses might sleepwalk through if not coached and coaxed right; Clarkson, for just one or two scenes where she reveals her own fractured marriage to Vicki, is great; and Johansson, who as a given is stunning in her appearance, reveals again in the context of a Woody Allen movie how underrated she can be as an actress- when used right and not just as ho-hum window dressing.
It also works because Allen knows how to write dialog and relationships so brilliantly, maybe better than anyone working in film today in terms of simple but all-too-complex revelations on the trapped nature of the human condition, the struggle of what love is and what it is to be an artist, or simply how to function with someone that you love, but don't "love" in that same way one meets a sweeping-off-your-feet romance in Barcelona like so. The scenes he writes here are so good, and are so cool in being a kind of Woody-version of a Spanish soap opera (hysterical couple and three-way included, though not graphic), that he almost gets in the way of it with the narration. This last part is the only real significant flaw, as unlike in Husbands and Wives, where Allen used narration in a documentary style and to shorter bits of effect, here it takes some getting used to having a person talking as if reading excerpts from a trashy romance novel, and pops in giving those "and then she never felt the same way again" kind of notations to a character or scene that are just unnecessary.
If you love classic Woody Allen romance comedy, and you also are interested in how he's starting to get a little riskier, a little more interested in the existential angles of his characters that he's touched on off-and-on for years and has only finally (Match Point and Cassandra's Dream) opened up in full bitter glory, this is the pick of the rest of the summer, maybe even of the year. Overall, you just don't get rom-coms this smart, or just plain funny and perfectly PG-13 outrageous, as Vicki Cristina Barcelona gets.