The cast of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is muy caliente … and the movie’s not bad either. Two sets of the most voluptuous lips in the business, belonging to Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson, rendezvous together and with Latin heartthrob Javier Bardem in a light romantic roundelay set in sunny Spain’s most sultry city.
On the next stop of Woody Allen’s recent European tour, which has included the plot-driven London crime capers “Match Point” and “Scoop,” the once incurable New Yorker returns to the character-driven form if not the former location of his most resonant work. The prolific writer-director harks back to the good old days when “Annie” and “Hannah” (and many others) bantered wittily about the bohemian/bourgeois vagaries of love and self-actualization in a funky Manhattan.
For today’s Catalan translation, he introduces another ensemble of neurotic, artistic urban sophisticates who obsess over their sex lives as they revel in splendid surroundings. Now Allen also has the good taste to stay behind the camera, indicating, hopefully!, that he recognizes how overripe his trademark screen persona has grown.
Barcelona’s well-captured vibrancy provides the perfect backdrop for a tale about the awakening of the title characters, two pretty American twentysomething expatriates with opposite tendencies. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is the repressed one, professionally focused and engaged to an appropriate, if blasé, breadwinner. Her pal Cristina (Johansson), on the other hand, flits between inappropriate relationships and is still looking for her muse.
Both gals, and the movie’s energy, will be shaken up for the good after they are approached for a threesome by a bluntly, irresistibly sexual native. The smoldering painter Juan Antonio (Bardem) only partially succeeds in his quest at first. But before long, both women become caught up in a life-changing tangle fueled by desire. It all becomes even more complicated with the return of Juan Antonio¹s brilliant, hot-blooded ex Maria Elena (Cruz).
Flings ensue and the meaning of fidelity is questioned as we in the audience giggle at Cupid’s flailing victims.
It doesn¹t add up to very much that¹s lasting.
But as travelogue, performance showcase and cosmopolitan romp, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” works. And, for an added bit of juicy voyeurism, you get to witness the venue through which stunning real-world lovers Cruz and Bardem allegedly fell for each other. Life imitating art, indeed.
(Quick facts: 4 out of 5 stars; Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz; Director: Woody Allen; Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality, and smoking; Running Time: 96 minutes)
