Woody Allen’s latest picture has been hailed as a return to form. Hmmm. Can you remember a Woody Allen picture that wasn’t heralded so? Even last year’s woeful Cassandra’s Dream, one of the worst films of Mr. Allen’s 58-year career, had its rare champions. Their mantra from the sidelines – it’s a return to form, a return to form.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is, to be fair, a much better picture than those produced during Woody’s English residency. Unable to rely on his ear for dialogue in Catalonia, the veteran writer-director has some fun as tourist. His Barcelona is a picture-postcard destination of Gaudi buildings, rustic churches and flamenco guitar. The film is all the better for it.
Similarly, his shouty, passionate Spanish characters are evidently not drawn from life but from Almodovar movies. Embodied by Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, the screen blazes up every time they spark into a fight. Trouble is, the movie isn’t about this pair, and the Vicky and Cristina of the title are, in fact, boring, regular Americans following a boring, regular arc. Vicky, essayed by Rebecca Hall, is the sensible one who stridently resists the advances of sophisticate artist Juan Antonio Gonzalo (Bardem) when he offers to whisk her away in his private plane and make love to her (and her friend) at his country home. Her open-minded companion Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is game, but it’s Vicky who ultimately finds herself seduced. Unable to express her feelings, she leaves Juan Antonio in Cristina’s embrace and returns to her dull fiancé to pine and mope.
The second part of VCB takes in Juan Antonio’s unorthodox domestic arrangements, once he and Cristina are joined by his tempestuous ex-wife (Cruz, never better) for some three-way shenanigans. This does provide the movie with a showpiece – Johansson getting it on with Cruz – but it makes for curiously unsatisfactory, lopsided drama.
Where Bardem and Cruz (who sadly doesn’t appear until an hour into the movie) are magnificent, their co-stars can’t quite make the grade. For a swinging chick, Cristina is a remarkably dull character and Scarlett Johansson is completely unable to bring her to life. Rebecca Hall fares better but one can’t help but wish she’d wander off into a different movie leaving Bardem and Cruz to entertainingly throw crockery at one another.
It’s not the return to form we wanted but it’ll pass the time nicely as a holiday fling.