Woody Allen admits that he made this new film in Spain simply because Spanish financiers offer to fund him. I can only guess that among those ponying up the Euros was the Spanish tourism board, because if nothing else Vicky Christina Barcelona makes you want to call up a travel agent to ask how much it would cost to rent a house in Barcelona for next summer. That aside, the film is a replay of standard non-comic Allen motifs played out with different actors in a different setting. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are young twentysomethings spending a summer in Spain. (A lesser—or another—filmmaker might have titled this Vicky and Christina Go To Barcelona, or Vicky and Christina’s European Adventure, or...). Vicky is here to work on her master’s thesis about Catalan identity, and to prepare for her wedding to a junior grade corporate lawyer while he eyes housing prospects in Westchester and Connecticut. Christina is along to renew her creative spirit after spending a year making a lousy short film. They meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), an attractive painter who takes a fancy to both of them. Throw in Penélope Cruz as Juan Antonio’s ferociously talented but mentally unstable ex-wife and you’ve got enough ingredients for Allen to shuffle around, playing them off the themes of romantic and artistic stability and exploration. There’s nothing terribly surprising about any of it, and nothing that tries to be funny (which may be just as well, given Allen’s recent attempts at comedies). But it all looks gorgeous, the soundtrack features a lot of seductive guitar music, and there are worse ways to spend your movie fund this weekend. And for what it’s worth, Allen has just finished shooting his next film in Manhattan.
—m. faust
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