Review of Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) by Greg L — 29 Jul 2010

Meh. Love's troublesome passions and uneasy responsibilities, and the tension between the two, remain as fertile thematic ground for film as ever, but it's pretty apparent Woody Allen no longer has much of interest to say about them.

Both female leads are rather flat and creakily written, and the dialog feels time transported straight out of Allen's 1970s heyday - I can't remember the last time I heard a member of my generation refer to a one night stand as "making love", at least not unironically.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given that Allen wrote as well as directed, the script is awash in creepy-old-man male fantasy and shallow, cartoonish Europhilia - Woody at least had the sense not to cast himself as the impossibly suave bohemian who effortlessly beds three different beautiful young women this time, but that is the plot, and as much admiration as the movie evinces for the more relaxed and worldly lifestyles and sexual mores of the Europeans, it doesn't address the question of how they make a living or allow them to speak their own language for more than a few lines at a time.

And in lieu of the sort of character development that might make the outlandish premise a bit more believable, it opts to tell rather than show via a mind-bogglingly smug and lazy voiceover. It's not even particularly sexy, which is unforgivable in a movie that features a guy having a threesome with Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz.

About the only reasons to watch are the gorgeous Catalan scenery and Javier Bardem schmoozing it up as a Latin lover painter. A lot of critics hailed this as a return to relevance for Allen, but it just seems like more same old same old to me.