Allen Wrench

Having rather liked Match Point, though not other Woody Allen films I'd sampled, I decided to test whether it was the man himself as an actor that put me off of his movies. Perhaps another film which he made, but did not star in, would be more to my liking?

So it was that I came to his more recent film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's a tangled love story of two women who go on a trip to Spain and become involved with the same man, complicated by the fiance of one of the women, and the crazy ex-wife of the man himself.

The movie seemed to prove Match Point the exception for me in Woody Allen's career. As a filmmaker, he seems far more concerned with character than plot, and this film seems to take that to an extreme. I don't think this movie has any real point of view to express, nor any story to tell. It's simply five characters tangled up in a romantic morass, ninety minutes of people it's hard to care for trying to figure out what they want. A sing-songy, cloying, and unnecessary narrator tries to build this up as a story worth listening to.

If you are moved by performances as much as content, however, this movie does have many good ones. Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson are the two characters of the title, Javier Bardem their Spanish love interest. Penélope Cruz is the crazy ex-wife. All exhibit a charisma strong enough that you can at least believe the characters would be interested in one another, if you at least aren't terribly interested in them.

Actually, I shouldn't level such faint praise on the acting, because ultimately, I'd probably rate the film a C+. And as I've made it quite clear how little I cared for the story, that should tell you just how compelling the performances are. So if you're interested in some nuanced and intriguing acting, you might want to check it out. I just wish it were all in service of something with more substance, and less like a soap opera.