DVD Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen's Spanish Romance Snags Penélope Cruz an Oscar
Feb 25, 2009
In recent years, Woody Allen has turned his back on his beloved Manhattan and filmed in Europe. He continues to be a prolific director, releasing on average one film per year, and actors still clamour to work with him, hoping to capture that vintage Woody magic.
Allen Better Behind the Camera than in Front of It
Three of his last four films have starred Scarlett Johansson, who is rapidly becoming to Allen’s films what Diane Keaton was in the 1970s and Mia Farrow was in the 1980s. Their first film together, Match Point, set in London, was a dramatic thriller. Their second was Scoop, also set in London, and Allen co-starred as an avuncular advisor to Johansson’s scatter-brained writer. Their third, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, moved the action from England to Spain, and snagged co-star Penélope Cruz an Oscar in 2009.
It’s apparent that Allen’s films these days are better when he’s not in them. Match Point was taut and menacing and featured Johansson’s best work since Lost In Translation. Scoop was a silly trifle, and Johansson spent much of it caught in a familiar trap in Allen’s films: a tendency to talk like Allen’s onscreen persona. Vicky Cristina Barcelona falls between the two, but benefits from Allen’s remaining off-screen.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona: The Story
Two young women, Vicky (Frost/Nixon’s Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Johansson), travel to Spain for the summer to stay with Vicky’s aunt Judy (Patricia Clarkson). Sensible Vicky is engaged to “a nice boy.” Cristina is single, restless, and has big ideas about living a life filled with art and passion.
One night they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a dashing, sexy painter who invites them to spend the weekend with him. Over Vicky’s protests, Cristina agrees, but due to a somewhat contrived chain of events, Vicky winds up sharing Juan Antonio’s bed at first, and starts to doubt her life-plan.
Not knowing about the tryst, Cristina eventually becomes Juan Antonio’s lover, and is then confronted by his temperamental and suicidal ex-wife, Maria Elena (Cruz). So the girls spend the summer thusly: Cristina in a kind of ménage-a-trois with the beguiling Spaniards, and Vicky dreading her forthcoming wedding.
Voice-over Narration Distracting and Unnecessary
Barcelona is only a backdrop for the relationship drama; Allen has yet to give another city the same role in his films that New York played for so long. And Johansson still occasionally falls into Woody-speak, although she controls it for the most part.
Hall, in the unenviable “good girl” role, does her best to show Vicky’s struggles, although she might have had more freedom to do so without the narrator, who continually breaks the “show, don’t tell” rule.
Bardem gets to show America the sex symbol he is in Spain, Americans knowing him best for his Oscar-winning role as the psychopath in No Country for Old Men. Again, though, too much is told through voiced-over montages rather than showed by the actors.
Cruz’s performance is commanding, certainly – she fills up the screen and draws the eye, even when surrounded by equally gorgeous co-stars. The tortured artist and the crazy ex-wife are two overly-familiar archetypes, and Cruz flirts with hysteria during Maria Elena’s rages. Preserving the character from being a stereotype is the fact that the story turns the traditional old-wife/new-wife conflict on its head by having Maria Elena and Cristina fall for each other.
Cruz’s Oscar win will likely help keep Vicky Cristina Barcelona from being dismissed as one of Allen’s less-worthy endeavours, and hopefully he’ll continue to mine inspiration from European cities. With any luck, he’ll leave out the narration next time.
