User Reviews

Anyone else get the impression that Javier Bardem's character Juan Antonio had no interest in anything but sex? If you didn't perceive that along the way, then it becomes more than evident when he seduces Vicky (Rebecca Hall) the final time, regardless of her conflicted feelings and potential collapse of her fledgling marriage. If anything, the movie's theme can be best summed up by the character of Cristina (Scarlett Johannson), who the fiery Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) pegs as possessing 'chronic dissatisfaction'. That struck a chord with this viewer, as I'm sure many people of both genders are struck with a semblance of chronic dissatisfaction in their lives or careers. In this picture, it appeared that the condition applied to just about every principal and ancillary character, except Juan Antonio of course, since he found ways to satisfy himself virtually every day of the week.

This was a different kind of role for Bardem, hard to reconcile against his relentless assassin turn in "No Country for Old Men". He was just so smooth, one could actually envy him. But it's Cruz who gets my vote as the fulcrum on which this story pivots, just catch her expression when she arrives with a pistol to take out Juan Antonio. Wow! Such brazen hatred in someone so lovely. I don't know if that was enough to earn her the Best Supporting Actress because she wasn't on screen that long, and not until the latter half of the picture, but for the amount of time you saw her, she presented an amazingly complex character.

But when it all came to an end, it didn't seem like there was anyone left better for the experience. Life is like that sometimes, so I guess loose ends have their place. The one thing I could have done without in the story was the droning narration by Christopher Evan Welch. I found it more distracting than helpful, tending to lower one's expectations for something exciting to happen. What I would have liked was something larger written for Juan Antonio's father Julio (Josep Maria Domènech). He looked like a character waiting to happen.

In "Vicky Christina Barcelona", Woody Allen reinvents the notion of schools of loves through the conflicting visions of two friends in their early 20's, visiting Barcelona for the first time.

Rebecca Hall is Vicky, the sensed and practical one, she's no less romantic than the average girl but she has loving rhyming with living, she takes love seriously and so her coming marriage with Doug (Chris Messina) a young junior manager who, if not the fire of senseless passion, doesn't lack the promising capability to be a good 'provider'.

Scarlett Johannsson is Christina, the passionate Ying to Vicky's wise Yan, she's an idealistic woman who envisions love as a sort of omelet that doesn't go without breaking eggs, there must have a good deal of suffering and hurting, proportionally to the heights of passions to be reached. She didn't find the true love, but she's still at an age where questions have the edge over answers. And it's interesting how their occupations reflect their personalities.

Vicky is a linguist who came to Barcelona to study Catalan identity, Christina is an aspiring director or photographer, an artist to make it short. The two girls have fundamentally opposed views on love, but they won't amount to much in Barcelona, the third side of a fascinating love triangle. After having romanticized the Big Apple and then deconstructed its romantic myth, coming totally full circle with his cherished hometown, Woody Allen embarked on a European trip in the early 2000's and the halt in Barcelona was certainly one of the most notable and inspired.

With three dozens of movies on the clock, Allen sure acquired a unique talent to make a city feel alive through the film, and with the Gaudi signature, the cathedrals and the restaurants open at midnight, we know it's a matter of time before any convictions is swept up by the romantic mood of city. Indeed, with a town like Barcelona in the backdrop, half a Casanova's work is done. And when Javier Bardem as Juan Antonio comes and proposes the girls a little trip to Oviedo, granted he embodies all the suave charm of the Spanish lover, but he's like endorsed by the hypnotic beauty of the city.

It's an old trick many womanizers apply, at a time where you had to cruise and be charming on the spot, not behind a screen, they generally went to the spot flourishing with tourists. Any lady-killer could stroll in Paris in Luxembourg Gardens during summer, a free visit to an English tourist enamored with the city would be the kind of proposals that'd rarely encounter a "no". But while Vicky can see behind the game and Christina just get in the flow, and before we know it, the 'no' became a 'yes'. Not sure the trick would work in America with all the sexual harassment talk but in 2008, everybody found it romantic ... so it's not just a matter of geographical context.

The trip doesn't follow exactly the trajectory we expect, or maybe it does, but just take a little detour, allowing the complicity to blossom between Juan Antonio, the tormented artist and Vicky. Juan Antonio had struck Chrsitina's attention because of some backstory about the conflicting relationship he had with his ex-wife, but the character he shows to Vicky is oddly matching her own approach to life and art, to the point that her attention toward her fiancée gradually slips.

The trouble with cities like Barcelona, cities with a soul, is that you can't tell to which extent they influence your perceptions. Does Vicky appreciate Juan's company because she's in the perfect context for that, holiday, summer, relaxation or is the attraction genuine? To complicate things a little, her fiancé comes, to celebrate a first wedding in Spain, while Juan gets back to Christina. Something very interesting happens then in the mind of Vicky, that doesn't need any fancy analysis, it's summed up in one exchange: Juan says she and her fiancé are made for each other, and in a typical Allenian move, she's offended.

Why is that serious relationships or ambitions that imply steady comforts are perceived as negative? To the film's defense, this is not what "Vicky Christina Barcelona" advocates, it does provide a nice glimpse on Spanish Bohemian life and I don't know anyone who wouldn't be tempted to live with a glass of wine everyday, painting and making love or living in a ménage a trois. In the very context of the film, it is appealing, but the antidote is clearly provided by the fourth and most memorable character of the film, Penelope Cruz as the ex-wife. Earning her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, this is not just a credit to her talent but to her weight in a rather lighthearted film.

Before her entrance, the film made an effort to portray Juan as an attractive man and men like Doug as boring and "knowing nothing about passion" and only leading to failing and hypocritical couples such as the one formed by Chris Dunn and Patricia Clarkson.. If the film doesn't strike for its subtle characterization (Allen generally excels in this game even for minor characters), at least it provides a character who's so passionate you just want to take the next plane not to New York, but to Alaska. As Maria Elena, Penelope Cruz plays a jealous, envious, suicidal, possessive, luscious woman, who takes art to a level of destruction and destruction to the level of art, to the point that what starts like a sensual adventure with three people finally prompts Christina to pull herself together and leave.

It is a credit to Allen for not having surrendered to a total triumph of passion over reason, the ending suggests that when it comes to love, nothing is really what it's all cracked up to be and sun is always sunnier in the other side of the Atlantic, especially under the sky of Barcelona.

Here's a word I despise using in reviews: boring. But, I seriously can't avoid describing 'Vicky Christina Barcelona' as just that: boring. Probably because I've never been a Woody Allen fan. Well, you're either a Woody Allen fan or not, an Adam Sandler fan or not, a Jim Carrey fan or not, or even a Stanley Kubrick fan or not. (Personally, only of the ones mentioned, I'm only a Carrey fan, but only for about 70% of his films.) 'Vicky' seems just to be a simple story of two different, but best gal friends on holiday in Spain who both get seduced by a completely lost, and drama-followed painter (Bardem.) We learn of their loves/likes/dislikes and definitely unhappy lifestyles they either are leading or will live. Everyone is lost, unhappy or despicable. Barely a character will think twice about having an affair, a destructive threesome or someone else's feelings. In fact, the only character you feel for, or maybe supposed to care about is Chris, the finance/husband of Vicky, much like John C. Reilly's character, Amos, in 'Chicago' – both Amos and Chris are the only respectable characters/spouses in their movies and both are completely oblivious and naïve. Yet, we get to watch them get lied to, stomped on and kept in the dark throughout. Granted, both title characters did what they could with the material they were given, but the real reason I watched was for all the Oscar buzz concerning Penelope Cruz. Yes, she was good. Great? Not really. My vote still leans towards Marisa Tomei in 'The Wrestler.' And you have to stammer through the first 50 out of 96 minutes to finally see Cruz. Aside from her performance, I'm not surprised no other nominations were handed out. Oh, yeah, they were probably just as bored as I was.

"Vicky Christina Barcelona" will be praised by the few remaining Woody Allen fans and condemned by the rest of us, whose model for drama is derived from classic Greek theater. The demands for statement of circumstance, a crescendo of conflict rising to a crisis, a resolution of the crisis, and a brief concluding summary are missing from VCB. The convention of character change -- Othello changing into a wife murderer, Hamlet deteriorating into madness, Scout's discovery of important life values in "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- is also missing. The usual expectation that minor characters are introduced into a story if they have some purpose, is ignored. And of course, the common convention of a plot, as opposed to a vignette, is nowhere on the horizon. The extensive use of anonymous voice-over narration does not salvage this wreck and only leaves the audience annoyed and patronized.

It is worth speculating that if someone else had proposed to make this same movie, someone previously unknown, it never would have gotten financed.

Vicky and Christina are not believable from their first introduction. That the stiff and conservative Vicky would have traveled to a foreign country with the impulsive and directionless Christina to spend two months together is inconceivable. Given that the initial premise fails, the rest is an embarrassing exploration of an old man's fantasy about two young women.

At one point Vicky meets a young man in a language class, another possible diversion for her. Although he seems dramatically interesting, he disappears after his one brief scene. His exchange with Vicky adds nothing to her self-awareness or any other aspect of the movie. The scene could have been cut entirely with no consequence except elimination of any expectation in the audience that the young man might have some purpose in the film.

When the endless display of self-descriptions by each of the characters becomes tiresome to all, including the characters, we experience a classic "deus ex machina." Maria Elena is dropped into the little that remains and fires off a few sobering rounds.

The movie ends pretty much where it began. Vicky is the same Vicky, conservative, now married, willing to make the same compromises she has always made. Christina is still floundering around trying to discover herself. Whose movie was this? Was it Vicky's or Christina's? In the end neither of them holds our interest.

When will Woody Allen get over his ridiculous obsession with the pretentious rich? It used to be that he wrote for the masses, albeit the educated, urbane masses. So maybe he just needs to get back to his New York roots (again), but for the love of Gene Shalit, could he please stop turning in such bland crap? Does anyone else remember when Allen had a real knack for snappy dialog? For characters who seemed as real as the veins on your hand? When his movies were clever, not predictable? When each movie contained a rich, vibrant atmosphere that drew from both negative and positive aspects of The Big Apple? Or did I dream about all of those movies? Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a big dud. It's about a love/lust pentagon that involves titular friends (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johannson), on vacation in the titular town, who encounter Bohemian painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). But Vicky's engaged to a sanctimonious tool (Chris Messina), and then Juan Antonio's unstable ex-wife (Penelope Cruz) shows up as well. And it being Spain, everyone's got lust on the brain, and there's plenty of partner swapping.

To begin with, the movie's far too talky. True, many of Allen's early movies were just as reliant on dialog, but in those cases - I'm looking your way, Annie Hall and Manhattan - the dialog was florid and witty. Here it's dull and placid. So you get these long stretches where two of the characters, whomever they are, will talk, and talk, and talk endlessly about whatever their current situation is, without doing much about it. These people are the poster children for passive-aggressive behavior; even when they do act on something, it's devoid of passion and meaning.

Except, of course, when Cruz shows up. Before we even meet her, Maria Elena is shown to be idolized by Juan Antonio, even after she stabbed him with a knife. She's shown as this fiery charmer with whom the charming Juan Antonio had a love-hate relationship, and when Cruz finally does appear on screen, you can see the attraction and tension between them. This is partially because of how well Bardem and Cruz work together here but also because the other actors have virtually no charisma, not even the free-wheeling, carefree, doesn't-know-what-she-wants Cristina (Johannson).

But it's not just the talkiness and the lack of passion, it's the fact that this is a Woody Allen movie that behaves more like a John Badham movie, a movie that is virtually indistinguishable from other movies in the genre 0 in this case, romantic melodrama, I assume. On the plus side, it's not as horrendous as Allen's Match Point, which started out as a romantic melodrama and then inexplicably transformed into a deranged-stalker/murderer movie, but that doesn't make this a good movie by any stretch.

Perhaps it's a bit unfair to compare this to Allen's old movies, since everyone evolves, but I do wish he'd come back to writing about middle-class characters instead of these well-to-do, conceited knuckleheads. Watching his upper-class fables reminds me more of Merchant-Ivory dramas than anything else, and perhaps we should leave those movies to the likes of Merchant and Ivory, or Whit Stillman. This is a costume-drama period piece sans costumes or, uh, a period. It's wildly predictable - you can guess the sexual permutations about 20 minutes early - and a boring footnote to the master's long career.

Some have commented about the use of a narrator. Yes, that was lazy and intrusive, but not nearly the worst part of this boring mess of a film. And I wouldn't care if Woody Allen wasn't the director and writer - at this point I just watch films for what they are, not who was involved in making them. I found myself trying to stay awake while watching it, but when it had my full attention, I found myself amazed at the flimsiness being presented. Boring, self-indulgent people walking around a beautiful city, not knowing what they really wanted out of life, not really interested in anyone or anything else, except for what it meant to themselves.

And yes, Johansson's performance was quite bad, as others have mentioned, but it actually was consistent with the tone of the film, if that's in any way a "positive." There was a turning point, however, which I thought might save the film, at least to some degree, and that occurred when the Johansson character decided she no longer wanted to be in the menage a trois situation. When the viewer isn't given any reason for this decision, I had to laugh, because that was the final confirmation of my thoughts up to that point. Like Johansson, the paintings, which were just AbEx rip-offs, reflected the lack of overall depth the viewer is compelled to endure.

These are just unappealing, narcissistic people I would not want to know. Their only goals in life concern self satisfaction, and the viewer isn't even given a reason why this is the case. Is it that Woody himself is now like this and assumes everyone else in the world is? That's really the only somewhat interesting thing that I took from this film. Unlike in some of his early films, there is no sardonic wit here, or anything else that would allow us to find something special about this. If someone else had given us this film, especially if it was a young person, I'd think that this person had a lot of "growing up" to do. The people in this film are the kind of bit-part characters that the main characters in Woody's best films would make fun of !

There were three things that bothered me about this movie. 1) Woody Allen, whose controversial relationships are well-documented, has created a movie promoting a judgment free world where people should do as they please with their relationships. Nothing wrong with that, but why does he need to put down conventional lives and relationships in order to do so? He mocks conventional life styles as mundane and torturous. Two male characters are negatively portrayed because of their huge sin: being boring (gasp!). You would think that a man whose movies are found to be boring by 95% of the population would be sensitive towards that label.

2) The writing when it comes to the characters. They all talk the same, use the same vocabulary, and posses the same wit. Maybe for New York intellectuals who only hang around each other that might be the case, but for the rest of the world, that's not the case and it makes for a rather unrealistic movie. Take the character of Juan Antonio as an example. When he introduces himself, he struggles with his English and fumbles for the right words, then two sentences later, he uses the word "subterfuge". What foreigner do you know who struggles with the English language and who also use that word? What native English speakers do you known who uses that word? Again, this is because all the characters are written to speak the same.

3) The story. At the end of the movie, all of the characters are exactly at the same place they were at the beginning of the movie. You could argue that Vicki's character views her life differently, but yet she's still following the same actions she did at the beginning. In essence, you just wasted your time watching this movie, for all of the weaving the story tries to do, in the end, you are back to where you started.

The cinematography was nice, but outside of that, not a good movie.

I've mostly stayed away from Woody Allen movies from the last 20 years because my few forays into things he's done in that time (Anything Else, Manhattan Murder Mystery) were not pleasant. Add Vicky Cristina Barcelona to the pile of unpleasantness. This movie is bad. I can't understand the folks who raved about it and gave it a 10.

What parts of this movie could have possibly warranted a 10?

• The boring narration that repeats the action we've just seen or are about to see?

• The stilted dialogue of Rebecca Hall in the scene where she first meets Javier Bardem and acts exactly like Woody Allen? Woody should have been sitting in that scene!!

• Any scenes featuring the stereotypical boyfriend of Rebecca Hall?

I'm giving this movie a 2, and that's because I'm giving 1 point for the arrival of Penelope Cruz, who first appears in the movie at 1 hour and 14 minutes into it. I know it took that long for her to appear because I checked the time on the screen. Her appearance completely wiped away anything that happened before in the film. Thankfully!! (Maybe that accounts for the high marks!?!?) This movie would have been better served if all of Scarlet Johansen's screen time was given to Penelope Cruz. But then we wouldn't have seen the kiss between these two, which accounts for the other point I'm issuing. Penelope is the only reason to watch this movie, but it's not enough to compensate for the crud around it. Javier Bardem was good, but I can't give this movie more than a 2, so I'll make it up to him elsewhere.

For young folks out there who've heard Woody Allen's name and have wondered about his movies, please stick to things like Hannah and Her Sisters and all of the other movies he made before that time. Those are wonderful. The dark ones, as well as the early funny ones if you know what I mean!! The stuff he's been churning out robotically in the past 20 plus years are mostly dreadful. It's sad, really, what's happened to Woody. Can't he just go away? I use to feel sad when I read about a writer or director who hasn't made a movie in many years and I wondered why they went away, or how enjoyable it would be to see them again. But like an athlete, creativity has a lifespan, with peaks and valleys along the way until the eventual final decline. The artists who stopped making movies once their artistry declined were smart. I'm sorry to say that Woody's final decline happened many years ago.

First of all i would like to say that I'm a big fan of the old woody Allen , i mean the great director/writer woody Allen , who created in over thirty years in the business some of the most romantic , funny . dramatic , masterpieces that shined in Hollywood starting from Annie Hall , to Hannah and her sisters , Mighty Aphrodite , and last but not least Sweet and lowdown . But the new woody Allen has produced many unbalanced , mildly funny , and romantically dead movies such as Melinda and Melinda which was acceptable , but not a woody Allen material , Hollywood Ending which wasn't so bad as well but wasn't good either , and this year his latest film came out and i had mixed feeling about it , i was frightened that another disappointing movie from the master Allen could destroy my love to his earlier masterpieces , and unfortunately , it was even more disappointing than i could ever imagine .

The movie's basic concept is actually more similar to a combination of Baywatch and Desperate housewives , but apparently with higher level of acting . It's about two amazingly beautiful women Vicky (Rebecca hall) the committed ,engaged , and somehow mature woman who chose Barcelona to get her masters degree in Catalan Identity , and Cristina(Scarlett Johansson) , the spontaneous , free spirited , less mature who came to Barcelona in a self finding journey . Vicky and Cristina Meet Juan Antonie the passionate painter who suffers after a bad split from his girlfriend Marie Elena who tried to kill , Juan Antonia has an affair with Vicky, before he gets involved in a relationship with Cristina , then Marie Elena comes back in the picture and lives with Cristina and Juan Antonia , after she tried to kill herself . However i can't see the whole point of the movie , and as i said before the movie is an odd combination of Baywatch and desperate housewives ,because so many affairs happen during it's kind of short length , and it's basically about good-looking people showing off on screen with good acting skills , but no real sense of the movie . but Despite that Penelope Cruz managed to catch the eye with a very good performance that actually was the most and only beautiful thing in the movie .

In The end i really hope that Woody Allen comes back to what he did before making great movies and entertaining , and making millions of people all around the globe laugh .

Vicky Christina Barcelona may be the laziest movie I have ever seen. Not necessarily the worst movie ever, but I don't think I have ever seen so many talented people put in so little effort (with the exception of Penelope Cruz). I mean, I fully understand why Woody Allen would want to spend several weeks in Barcelona with three beautiful women, but I don't know why he bothered to put film in the camera and call it a movie.

The central hope of the movie is that constant references to Gaudi, Miro, and how Vicky is getting her masters in Catalan identity (BTW, if you Google "masters in Catalan identity" EVERY result is about this movie, which tells you how bogus that is) will distract you from the fact that this movie basically recycles the two most tired clichés of late-nineties soft-core porn: Sexually conservative woman meets a tall, dark stranger who makes her question her life AND sexually adventuresome woman meets a tall, dark stranger who helps her experience increasingly exotic thrills including (gasp!) lesbianism. Strangely these two plots never really intersect, which is particularly odd since the tall, dark stranger is the same for both of them.

Other than the pretty Tourist Board shots of Barcelona, the main dramatic thrust of the movie is how Vicky thought she had her life planned out, but a tryst with the exotic Spaniard has made her question everything. How do we know this? Because Vicky actually says things like "I thought I had my life planned out, but…" And not just once, but she says it to the Spaniard, she says it to Patricia Clarkson, and she says it to a classmate from her language class, who is introduced for the sole purpose of giving Vicky one more person that she can tell. Oh, and in case you still missed it, there is a ludicrously intrusive narrator who explains it all to you again and again. Why is Vicky suddenly dissatisfied with her entire existence after one quick roll in the grass with the Spaniard? No real reason is ever given, other than that the rule of the cliché is that intelligent American women are all sexually repressed with boorish husbands.

I'm sure that the stilted dialog is meant to make it feel "theatrical" and the oppressively obvious and distracting narrator is meant to be ironic (like the Greek Chorus in Mighty Aphrodite), but without any real plot, characters, or motivations, it just adds to the sensation that you're trapped for ninety minutes while someone tells you about a mediocre movie they once saw.