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FILM REVIEW: 'VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA' DVD

Woody Allen Returns to Form With a Postcard From a Beautiful Time & Tale

By: Mark Amato
January 19, 2009

In Woody Allen's latest venture, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the writer-director tackles yet another fascinating take on a complicated relationship.  Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) visit Barcelona for their summer, staying with Vicky's distant relative, Judy (Patricia Clarkson), and her husband, Mark Nash (Kevin Dunn). A narrator, voiced by Christopher Evan Welch, describes the two friends: Vicky is practical and traditional in her approach to love and commitment, and is engaged to the reliable but unromantic Doug (Chris Messina). She is in Barcelona getting her Masters in Catalan Identity, a project spawned by her love of the works of Gaudí, and is emotionally moved by Spanish guitar. Cristina, on the other hand, is spontaneous and unsure of what she wants in life. She is just out of a relationship and wants to get over the bad time she had making a 12-minute film about Love.

 

At an art exhibition, they notice the artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Cristina is impressed with him at first sight, and grows intrigued when Judy and Mark tell the girls that the artist has suffered a violent relationship with his ex-wife, María Elena (Penélope Cruz). Later that night, when the pair notice him across the room in a restaurant, he marches over and seductively invites them to accompany him to the town of Oviedo, where they will sight-see, drink wine and, hopefully, make love. Cristina accepts at once, but Vicky is skeptical and initially refuses. 

Of course, they both end up taking him up on his offer, and what ensues from there on is a Woody Allen Spanish picture postcard of love, seduction, infidelity, and a crazy ex-wife.  

 

The scenery of Barcelona and Oviedo is positively breathtaking, as the filmmaker uses the romantic imagery to seduce the audience into the lurid exploits of his characters. This is the third Allen film Johansson has starred in (first in Match Point, then in the less successful but equally charming Scoop).  Clearly he's enamored with the actress, much the way he was with Diane Keaton back in the '70s and '80s. But it is Penelope Cruz who truly burns up the screen as Bardem's tempestuous ex-wife.  Their on-screen chemistry is magical.  

 

For his part, Bardem plays the suave lothario with irresistible charm and panache. Even though Allen remains behind the scenes as director and writer, his voice is clearly echoed in Vicky's character down to her neurosis.  For the harden fan, this remains one of Allen's finest, continuing yet a new renaissance for the auteur, starting with 2005's Match Point, after an almost decade lull of mediocre material including Deconstructing Harry, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending and Melinda and Melinda (starring, oddly enough, Will Ferrell).

 

Like every Woody Allen movie, there are no extras or interviews.  At a Q&A session a few years back at the Writer's Guild, Woody revealed that once he's done with a movie, he really is finished.  He doesn't believe in alternate endings or deleted scenes. As he quite eloquently put it, "If I wanted the scene to be in the movie, it would be in there." In case any of you had any hopes of a "Vicky Cristina Palermo," the director has never made a sequel in his life.

 

Even bad Woody is better than no Woody at all.  But great Woody, like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, clearly leaves you eagerly awaiting his next classic. 

 

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is available on DVD on Tuesday, January 27th 2009.