In 2005 Woody Allen made a triumphant comeback to critical glory with Match Point, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination in eight years. Well, it turns out that was only a warm-up. Allen saved his true comeback for the summer of 2008 with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, an honest tragicomedy that switches out Allen’s intellectual musings with a compelling study of the complexities of love. Featuring one of Allen’s strongest ensembles in years, the film hearkens back to Allen’s greatest days and ranks another "must see" addition to his filmography.
American students Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) travel to Barcelona to spend the summer with a friend of Vicky’s family (Patricia Clarkson). They are there only a few weeks when Cristina spots a sexy Spanish painter across an art gallery. He is Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who made circles through the art world by way of his wild and violent divorce to Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz). After only a few glances, Juan Antonio invites the girls to a weekend away for sightseeing, wining, dining and sex. Free-spirited Cristina jumps at the chance, but Vicky, who’s about to be married to one of those boring-young-businessmen types, is extremely reluctant. Still, the magical weekend that follows sends the trio spinning into a mess of romance and violence. And the love affairs entangle even more when suicidal Maria Elena arrives on the scene.
Allen has fashioned a sun-soaked fairy tale vision of Barcelona, a place where truly anything can happen. It is as much of a travelogue as one can make; every setting tops itself with its sheer intricacy and beauty. Allen and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe fill every day with soft sunlight and every night with passionate candlelight. Woody Allen’s Barcelona truly is paradise, and the rest of the film doesn’t disappoint. Utilizing a dry-voiced narrator that recalls high school health videos, the film unfolds as a document for audiences to ponder. Many perspectives on love and sex are thrown at us, and none of them perfect. Most telling is the relationship between Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, violent and vindictive yet they cannot stay away from each other. Maria Elena tells Cristina that it cannot be any other way; their love is missing something and must go unfilled and so it will always be romantic.
All the musings about love appear to have had an effect on Allen. The sex scenes (yes, they’re there) are tender and intimate. Yet throughout all the lovemaking, he remains restrained and tasteful. A tender embrace between Johansson and Cruz, shot in the penetrable redness of a dark room, is tantalizing and intense but not graphic. You gradually become aware that Allen is going somewhere he’s never gone before with an easy and assured hand. How odd it seems that the year’s sexiest movie comes courtesy of the world’s most famous neurotic, but that’s simply the way it is.
This marks Allen’s third collaboration with Scarlett Johansson, a pairing that has received much attention. But it is a match that suits Allen well; Johansson has never been more comfortable on screen, settling into her Cristina’s freewheeling but conflicted ways perfectly. Bardem eschews all the creepiness that brought him to public attention in last year’s No Country for Old Men by transforming into the kind of sexy Spaniard women dream of.
But the real story belongs to Rebecca Hall and Penelope Cruz. In what should be her breakout role, Hall is simply remarkable; she could easily have become the trademark Woody Allen neurotic character in the hands of a lesser actress. But as Vicky’s conflicted feelings towards Juan Antonio and her upcoming marriage collide, Hall’s quiet turmoil makes the film real. And Cruz revels in her role as the wildly chaotic, self-destructive Maria Elena. She careens between violent rampages and gentle lovemaking as often as she switches languages. Maria Elena is a mess of a person, but with Cruz’s assured performance there are no doubts about her sincerity, however brutal it may be.
When the film comes to a close and Vicky and Cristina post-Barcelona are compared with Vicky and Cristina pre-Barcelona, Allen makes his final, mature statement by avoiding making statements. He concedes that it is impossible to understand the complexities of love, no matter how many perspectives you observe. In telling the story of two girls who couldn’t be more different, Allen has found his voice in a way he hasn’t in decades. And if Johansson is Allen’s new Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow, so be it. If these are the results we get, we should all be thankful.
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