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Dancing_P [ 6.5 ]
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I suppose if you make a movie a year for forty years like Woody Allen, you can be forgiven for making a movie for the vacation it offers. There's precious little Woody Allen hasn't explored before in Vicky Cristina Barcelona but he's never shot in Spain before - so it exists.
Scarlett Johanson and Rebecca Hall play a couple of American tourists who meet suave Spanish painter Javier Bardem and independently begin trysts with him despite the various mitigating factors (boyfriend at home, Bardem's batshit insane ex Penelope Cruz).
Allen's apparently obligated to make a movie every year and so he takes what would've been better suited to the page (complete with faraminous amounts of omniscient voiceover) and throws it up on screen. The actors sure are pretty and so is Spain but there's really nothing original happening. Allen's going over his newfound love for European hedonism and his undying obsession with dysfunctional relationships in a not-uninteresting way but I'm not too convinced that this is new and improved Allen. It just looks like the same old Allen with an new exotic background... which isn't bad in itself. It's a sight better than Hollywood Ending, anyway.
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DokBrowne [ 6.5 ]
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Kinda disappointing, but this is late period Woody Allen we're talking about. I'm pleased to have gotten anything out of it, frankly, and it does provide a fill of gorgeous European settings, a pleasing vacationing vibe (most of the time the characters are hanging out idly together in idyllic villas sipping wine), and fine performances from excellently smooth Javier Bardem (is this a guy with range or what?) and crackling Penelope Cruz. You want to see how it all goes down....
...but nothing of note really happens. Not in the plot, not in the characterizations, not in the conversations. If you're not going to provide an arc or narrative of any kind, Allen, at least give us hearty dialogue. You are/were an interesting guy. You've been writing indelible exchanges your whole life. The dialogue here isn't all bad, but it's terminally perfunctory. With the tone pitched at frothy romantic drama, it prevents Allen from trying any overt comedy, but since the proceedings are also so lightly tinged, there's no real burrowing in to ideas or conflicts, either. It's a surface-level take on the whims of adultery and the reality of bohemian lifestyles. Not bad, but could've been a lot better.
ScarJo's 3rd helping of Woody (...) is probably her weakest. She was perfectly suited to "Match Point", charmingly centerpieced in "Scoop", but here she kinda flounders in a part that, like most of the people he's created this time around (even the more complex ones like Cruz), Woody Allen himself either doesn't fully understand or does not sufficiently portray through his writing. Rebecca Hall, as the mature, grounded (aka stifled) one, starts out intriguing but then just goes through the basic motions. Neither she nor anyone else grows or changes by the end, so the whole movie feels pointless in a way. Maybe if Allen made a point of showing that nobody changed, and used that as a theme of some kind...I'm not saying all movie characters have to learn their lessons by the end, but if they stagnate and the script itself isn't even aware of it, how is that engaging for we viewers?
This movie made me realize that Woody Allen isn't very good at endings. At least not anymore. He's had some good ones in his time but aside from "Match Point", his last several have been glaringly limp. "Melinda and Melinda" was insultingly simplistic like the last paragraph of a junior high essay, "Scoop" was morbidly off-key, "Cassandra's Dream" was bluntly abrupt, and I can hardly remember a single moment from "Anything Else" or "Hollywood Ending", let alone how they ended, so they probably weren't great either. The problem with "Vicky"'s conclusion is that it just trails off mid-sentence. You think we're still in the middle of dealing with Hall's inner struggle or Cruz's mercurial temper or ScarJo's pursuit of lasting happiness, until the narrator says "and they all kept on thinking and acting the same way, the end".
Okay, so Allen's aiming for subtlety and the no-easy-answers angle. That's admirable, I dig it, that's usually your thing and it's arguably more nourishing than just another happy ending. But give us something to munch on, an idea or two to take away with us during the fade-out. What the narrator is really saying is "...and then Woody Allen lost interest in this story and started writing his next one instead; see you all next year!"
(P.S. not to drive home my negative point here, but Wikipedia points out that Woody drafted a wacky production diary for the film, and seriously, in the four short entries that follow he shows more wit, vitality, and personality than in all of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona".
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Jan. 2 — Received offer to write and direct film in Barcelona. Must be cautious. Spain is sunny, and I freckle. Money not great either, but agent did manage to get me a 10th of 1 percent of anything the picture does over $400 million after break even.
June 1 — Arrived Barcelona. Accommodations first class. Hotel has been promised half star next year provided they install running water.
June 30 — Dailies are looking good, and while Javier’s idea to add a massive Martian invasion scene complete with a thousand costumed extras and elaborate flying saucers is not a very good one, I will shoot it to make him happy and cut it in the editing room.
Aug. 25 — End production today. Wrap party as usual a little sad. Slow danced with Scarlett. Broke her toe. Not my fault. When she dipped me back, I stepped on it ... Everyone in cast and crew chipped in and bought me a ballpoint pen.
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Again, to be clear I actually enjoyed the act of watching the movie, and probably will do so more times as life goes on, but it's weak material, really, and reading these diary posts proves that it's not because Woody has "lost it" in old age. He's still got something, at least as a comedian. I'm always down for a Woody Allen movie of any kind, and I encourage any paths he wants to take, but maybe he'd better off sticking to, or at least cleansing his palette once over, with a return to all-out comedy? Technically he hasn't done a straight comedy since "Hollywood Ending" ("Anything Else" was more "Annie Hall Jr.", "Scoop" was more of a genre hybrid), and while that wasn't a prize itself, it's been a long time. I want to see him shine again, and I'm sure he can.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.8 |
| No. Ratings | : 4 | |
| No. Reviews | : 2 | |
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