Smitten in Spain

Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelonais
a perfect romantic comedy

by MATTHEW HAYS

It takes Woody Allen to remind us just how much American genre films have degraded over the years. Upon hearing the words “romantic comedy,” for example, many discriminating filmgoers will simply gag. But Woody also reminds us how great American cinema can actually be.

His latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is one of those films, a clever, witty and sharp romantic comedy that’s about love and its ultimate meaning. The cast is perfect: Rebecca Hall plays Vicky, a by-the-books young woman who is engaged to a proper New York businessman with blue blood. Scarlett Johansson is her buddy Cristina, who is much more impulsive romantically and newly single. The two vacation in Barcelona, where they spot Javier Bardem at an art opening.

Cristina ogles him, and as the two women sit in a restaurant he approaches them and propositions them both. Woody mines the Latin-artist-lover stereotype, but does so with admiration for the character’s libidinous chutzpah. Vicky is dismissive, while Cristina is fully prepared to drop everything and head to his villa to go for it. Woody’s proclivity for sharp dialogue is in fine form in this scene—it’s a beautiful contrast between the two women and their attitudes towards sex and intimacy. Luckily, the film doesn’t lose its momentum.

As fate would have it, Cristina is hit with a bad bout of food poisoning, leaving Vicky to be taken on a tour of the town by Bardem. During an evening of wine tasting, she finds herself drawn to him, and they collapse into a lusty one-night affair. In a beautiful and evocative storyline, Vicky finds herself completely shaken up by the one tryst. Suddenly, her ideas about her engagement, her life, intimacy and happiness have been completely upended. Hall plays this complex range of emotion with the finesse of a truly superb actress.

Much of the hype surrounding Vicky Cristina Barcelona has centred on the threesome between Johansson, Penélope Cruz and Bardem. That makes it worth the price of admission alone, but that’s but one reason to see this, Woody’s most intriguing film in years—another foray into non-autobiographical territory for America’s most prolific director.

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
OPENS THIS FRIDAY, SEPT. 19

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