Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Genre: Drama & Romance
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson
Director: Woody Allen
 

As an early taste of summer warmth, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a really enjoyable Woody Allen movie, with sprinkles of Andalusian flavor and the free art-deco mood, custom to most Woody Allen love triangles movies.

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) are two best friends that go to Barcelona for a summer holiday at the invitation of one of Vicky's relatives. Vicky takes the opportunity to study for her Catalan culture degree, while Cristina is in search of never-ending romance and adventure. As the voice narrator says, the two women share everything, except for their taste in men: Vicky represents the down to earth, stable girl who is about to be married with Doug, a typical Wall Street guy, and Cristina always gives into temptation, always searching for the unsearchable.

When they are approached by the awfully handsome painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) with the sweet scandalous proposition of a weekend together filled with wine, good food and lovemaking, Vicky gives him a definitely “No”, while Cristina takes her time to send visual signals to Juan, over the table. This happens at a restaurant, and the two girls have never met before the artist. But of course, in the Woody Allen style, Vicky eventually finds herself the tagged along by Cristina, and the three of them get to spend quality time in Oviedo, an idyllic little Spanish town.

Surprisingly, Vicky is the first to have a fling with Juan, because Cristina gets hit by an ulcer crisis. She keeps everything quiet, thinking it was just a spur of the moment, and it wasn't real or serious. Meanwhile, her fiancé shows up in Spain, and Cristina moves in with Juan, who grows more found of her than her friend. Vicky is the one that gets burned because what she thought to be a meaningless affair keeps her her heart uneasy and thorned apart between her realistic part and her romantic self.

Somewhere in the middle, the messed up ex-wife of Juan appears, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), who plays wonderfully the part of a person both in love and in hate with everyone close to her. She burns up like an impulsive flare, but finds comfort and peace in the life created by Cristina. Although Cristina is a person who is supposed to love life, she looks completely indifferent to it, creating a balance between Juan and Maria. The romantic combinations keep increasing until the movie reaches a peek, where the viewer might get terribly disappointed (as I did) with the fact that Woody Allen, only shows in the end, that both romantic and realistic love are insufficient to complete someone's life.

As Maria Elena says “Only unfulfilled love is romantic”, maybe  the movie tries to show just what happens between various love scenarios, and not really where those scenarios can end up. If Cristina hasn't found what she's looking for by the end of the movie, and Vicky doesn't believe in anything anymore, neither the two artists Juan and Maria Elena are living the good life. You can just see for yourself how the movie plays out and, while I'm not betting that you'll find some answers, you'll definitely get some funny romantic moments, and you'll definitely be wondering how your love life is doing this summer.

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