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Movie Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
'Barcelona' a great balance of comedy, romance
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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Woody Allen may be long past the glory days of his ’70s hits, Manhattan and Annie Hall, but his latest film, a wry romantic comedy with a screen-stealing turn by Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, belongs among his best work.
There’s already talk and print about Vicky Cristina Barcelona winning Allen and Cruz Oscar nominations. They are obvious early contenders for awards season, but their film is rich enough to attract additional nominations, too.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a sort of filmed journal about two young women from New York who spend a summer in Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Visiting the beautiful city of Barcelona, Vicky, a practical grad student majoring in Catalan studies, and Cristina, a romantic would-be photographer, become entangled with Juan Antonio, a beguiling artist, and his crazy ex-wife, Maria Elena.
As usual in Allen movies, it’s a stellar cast. Javier Bardem, an Oscar winner for last year’s No Country For Old Men, oozes effortless charm as the sexually precocious yet sensitive abstract-expressionist painter, Juan Antonio.
Scarlett Johansson’s performance as Cristina, a free spirit hindered by a wounded wing, contains a poignancy that contrasts the actress’ white-hot celebrity. Rebecca Hall, co-starring as Vicky, etches an expertly modulated performance that’s essential to this ensemble comedy’s success.
As ideal for their roles as Bardem, Johansson and Hall are, the film’s tempo races when, well into the story, Cruz makes her disruptive entrance as the troubled Maria Elena. Allen gives the Oscar-nominated Cruz a great female role. Like Sophia Loren in Two Women, Bette Davis in Jezebel, but funny. However many future Oscar contenders are waiting in the wings, Cruz lights Vicky Cristina Barcelona so brightly that probably no one can overtake her.
Naturally, it’s Johansson’s Cristina who spots Bardem’s Juan Antonio. Lurking in a corner during an art gallery opening, he broadcasts his sensitivity and sexual charisma, or something like that. Cristina’s American host in Barcelona, Judy (Patricia Clarkson), doesn’t know the artist, but she’s heard tales of his bad marriage and divorce, which apparently involved attempted murder.
The latter words are flame to Cristina’s moth. At a restaurant later that evening, Juan Antonio glides over to Cristina and Vicky’s table.
“You know,” he coos to Cristina, “when I saw you across the room at the gallery, I noticed that your lips are full and sensuous.”
Vicky is appalled. Cristina is star struck. Sooner than later, though, even Vicky will recognize how shallow and materialistic her fellow Americans are next to this charming man from Catalonia.
Allen mounts a late-career coup with Vicky Cristina Barcelona. He casts his finely sketched characters, so well played by A-list actors, in a nearly perfect milieu of comedy, romance and madness.
