Another Disappointment Fueled By Uncritical Critics

Rating: 5/10 (24 August 2008)

After reading a couple of over-the-top reviews in New York publications, I was anxious to see Vicky Christina Barcelona. I felt that I had not seen a truly enjoyable Allen movie for about two decades, believing that Allen -- although he talked the self-disparaging talk -- had long ago begun to take himself much too seriously. And this was before his despicable personal behavior in ending his marriage for his stepdaughter (using, undoubtedly, many of the rationalizations he has raised to gospel in this movie).
I'd hated Matchpoint both because it was improbable (which I can tolerate in an otherwise well-conceived and executed work) and because it is difficult to "hear" Woody Allen opining on moral ambiguity. Although I realized that there were possible mines lying in wait in VCB, the reviews were so good; I had just (finally) seen Bardem in The Sea Inside and liked it very much; I am going to Barcelona in a few weeks; I had just seen Elegy with it's wonderful performance by Cruz, so I figured how bad could it be??
Barcelona and the cinematography were beautiful and Cruz was stupendous. Bardem, Hall and Johansson were all pretty wooden (which could be attributed in part to the script) and neither Hall nor Johansson is fit to share the stage with Cruz (or even Bardem for that matter). In fact, if the truth be spoken, from most angles Johansson has a decidedly porcine look no matter how they dress her up. And imaging a neo-Picasso falling for Johansson or Hall was truly funny. Sure, wanting to get into their pants was credible -- as Dave Van Ronk said in Cocaine Blues, "You take Mary, I'll take Sue/Can' tell the difference between the two/Turn 'em upside down."
Worst of all, both the overlying narrative and the screeds of the various characters on the subject of sexual freedom and not succumbing to a banal life with a person one didn't truly, passionately love had a terrible effect on me visually. It was as if I were one of Annie Hall's WASP parents....the speaker's face, whoever it was, would turn into schlubby Woody Allen right before my eyes and the sentiments were rendered vapid and ridiculous without the redeeming humor of Allen's early movies.
Moving his films out of New York has not saved Allen from the pit of self-indulgent, pretentious twaddle that he fell into sometime at the end of the eighties or in the early nineties.
Since writing this I have visited Barcelona, where I learned that Allen was paid to use Barcelona & to promote it. Not surprising from this ethical paragon....