Cracks In Sidewalks

“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is Woody Allen’s new film starring Javier Bardem as Juan Antonio, Scarlett Johansson as Cristina, Penelope Cruz as Maria Elena, Rebecca Hall as Vicky, and again one of my favorite supporting actresses Patricia Clarkson as Judy Nash.

Taking place primarily in Barcelona but also Oviedo Spain the film focuses on two best friends who have the opportunity to spend the summer in Barcelona residing in the home of close friends to one of the girls, parents.   Although best of friends they are very different.  Vicky very pretty, dark haired practical and studious is engaged to an ambitious NY businessman.   She has made decisions about her life, created a sensible plan, a map of her life so to speak, that she believes she will follow step by step..  A student of Catalan culture working on her master’s degree, she fell in love with the architecture of Gaudi as a young girl and has come to Spain to see his work and to learn and practice her Spanish.  On the other hand her best friend Cristina, could not be more different.  She’s smart but insecure, blond, sexy and sensual, and only knows what she does not want.  She has not a clue what to do next, so she decides to accompany her best friend to Barcelona for the summer.  An artist at heart in need of exploration, she is constantly searching for love and her choices in men have always been decided and defined by the passion and emotional risk involved; the higher the risk the better.  Vicky and her boyfriend, both believe Cristina has a pattern of making bad unconventional choices when it comes to love.  They believe she could continue down this path never really settling with anyone, as eventually passion always clashes with reality, Cristina gets restless, and then it’s time for her to move on, which she does.

Thus begins the tale of a summer of redefining love, asking unthinkable questions of oneself, exploration both personal and sexual that defy the norm.  What is love and when does it become unhealthy?  At what point do you break away?  How do we define ourselves in love and do we need to?  In this case much of the movie is centered on Javier Bardem’s character Juan Antonio.  He is a somewhat celebrated modern artist, who is very sexy and charismatic and goes for what he wants in the moment, and in this moment it happens to be Vicky and Cristina.   Enter his ex-wife, Penelope Cruz, Maria Elena, who is also an artist and so crazy and passionate she once tried to kill him.  Then there is Judy, Patricia Clarkson’s character, who is married to Mark, played by Kevin Dunn.   By the looks of it a very long-term happy marriage, but underneath all that marital success there is a feeling of settling.  A what if?

In “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” Allen finds a way of telling the story of each of these characters and their own personal battle with love, lust and life, and he manages to do all this in a funny, touching way.  At some point in the film all four women are faced with the following questions.  What are my boundaries?  Who set them and why?  When are boundaries meant to be broken?  What is more important, passion or rules?   The movie is both tragic and comedic, but Mr. Allen weaves his dialogue in such a way where heavy becomes light; and the actors give such great “dramedy” performances, that what is left of all this longing, desire, and angst is a fun entertaining “feel good” summer movie.

In my opinion it’s the best film Allen has made in a long time.  If you want to see an excellent movie that will raise questions while making you laugh, give you a great tour of Barcelona and Oviedo, (the cities are almost characters themselves), and watch Woody Allen’s new tale unfold with four very sexy consummate funny and appealing actors; check your local listings and go.  I think you’ll enjoy it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 6:04 am and is filed under Daily Crack. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.