Vicky Cristina Barcelona

When Woody Allen is on his game, there's few people who can do better. But when he's off the mark, there's very few who can go quite so off the mark. Vicky Cristina Barcelona has a picturesque Spain setting and a lot of possibility as a sex comedy-drama, but Allen's needlessly talky and wordy dialogue sucks all the joy out of the premise before it even has a chance to intrigue us. The movie never lets us figure things out for ourselves, because there's a "helpful" narrator (voiced by Christopher Evan Welch) to explain every single detail when the characters are not explaining.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the kind of movie where the characters say what they're going to do before they do them. It's like they're giving us fair warning, such as when a character says, "I'm a little out of control" right before she...well, goes out of control. It's almost as if Allen has written the DVD commentary into the screenplay itself, like he wanted to save time and money. But that does not even compare to the narrator, who pops up to point out the obvious. When the characters arrive at a hotel, he chimes in with a helpful "They arrived at the hotel...", just in case you were digging through your bag of popcorn instead of looking at the screen, I guess. And don't worry, when they leave the hotel, he once again tells us "They left the hotel...". He also pops up at the worst times to tell us exactly what the characters are thinking, so there's absolutely nothing left for us to figure out on our own. There's not a single moment that isn't telegraphed or explained, which makes you wonder just whom this movie was made for.

I found all this over-explaining curious, as the story at the center of the film isn't very complicated to begin with. Best friends, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson), arrive in Barcelona, Spain for a summer holiday. Their first night there, they have an encounter in a restaurant with a handsome painter named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem, much more different and charming here than he was in No Country For Old Men). The painter invites the two girls only seconds after introducing himself to fly away with him to a Spanish island for wine and sex. Instead of being offended by having a total stranger walking up to them and offering sex, Cristina is intrigued, while Vicky is more nervous. Of course, we already know this, since the narrator has gone through the trouble of spelling out the way these girls think, THEN the girls themselves tell us what they think. They agree to his offer, and at first, Juan tries to seduce Vicky, even though she has a fiance waiting for her back in America. He then turns his sights to Cristina, and they enter into a relationship that lasts the entire summer. Things get complicated when Juan's ex-wife Maria (Penelope Cruz) walks back into his life, and moves in with the couple. Cristina, Juan, and Maria soon enter into a strange relationship where the three become intimate with each other. (The movie does hint at an "experimental" relationship between Johansson and Cruz, but due to the PG-13 rating, all we see is them kissing briefly, a fade out, and then more narration.)

It's not simply the fact that everything is explained to the point of ridiculousness in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but also the fact that nothing happens that truly grabbed my attention. The film moves at an almost glacial pace, and although certain scenes did grab my attention or intrigue me, they are fleeting and too far between. The movie almost seems to be more interested in showing off the Spanish scenery, which is indeed quite lovely and beautifully shot. Cristina just happens to be a photographer, so there's plenty of scenes of her touring the landscape, taking photos. Though billed as a comedy, there are scarcely any genuine laughs. The characters are constantly making observations in their dialogue which I guess are supposed to come across as witty, but they seemed scripted to me and often glaringly so. Not only has everything been over-explained, everything is over-written too, to the point that the dialogue does not seem natural in any way.

The performances try to lend some energy to the proceedings, but they never quite give enough. As the title characters, Johansson and Hall are both likable, but not much more than that. None of their particular scenes stand out, and Allen seems to be having a hard time making us care about them. Javier Bardem is usually quite charming in his performance, which is a good thing, since the character has been written as a silly bore. His Juan Antonio is just an assembled bunch of cliches of various Spanish lovers, and never truly develops into a real character. Bardem's on screen charisma is the only thing that keeps the character afloat. And then there is Penelope Cruz, who is pretty much the closest thing this movie has to a living, breathing entity. Her Maria is fiery, passionate, and gets the closest thing resembling laughs in this movie. She also gives the only performance that demands our attention, forcing us to pretty much ignore everything but her whenever she's on screen.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is almost a complete and total misfire, which isn't exactly surprising considering some of Allen's recent work. (In my opinion, Match Point was his last good movie.) What did surprise me is how utterly dull I found the film. Part of this is due to the film's desire to explain every last detail, and another part is due to the fact that nothing ever captured my interest. The movie's received strong word of mouth, and I just could not see it. The movie isn't sexy or passionate enough, nor is it emotional enough to make me want to go along for the ride.

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