Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I fell in love with this movie. I fell in love with the story, the passion and the acting. The direction is really good and the story too. Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and super super PenÃlope Cruz all acted really great. All the bad comments go to hell...

Woody Allen is one of those directors that either we love or hate. I confess, I am the exception: I don't like nor hate, I've never had much contact with his films. This film was, probably, the first of his work I saw from beginning to end, and I liked it. It has a somewhat unrealistic but acceptable script in which two American girls get involved with the same man during a summer trip to Barcelona. Both are dissatisfied with their love life for different reasons: Vicky attaches great value to commitment but needs passion to support it; Cristina is very passionate but she cannot be in a relationship because she always feels something missing. In this duality lies the great criticism the film makes to the emptiness of American society, described as very conservative and worried with appearances. On the other side the Spanish Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, a former couple whose love is deep and destructive to the point of not being able to live without melodramatic fights. Through them, Allen seems to criticize the way of being of European society, described as being very liberal. The whole movie is a clash of mindsets of different people, representing very different civilizations and different ways of facing love. Of course, this is all based on Woody Allen's own views. I, for example, have a very different idea of ​​what Europeans and Americans are like, and I don't think they are so different. We must not forget that American society has been shaped in the image of Europe. Never has Europe seemed to me as liberal and open-minded as the film suggests, and even Latin countries (like my own) are quite conservative, partly because of religious issues, although its also true that they're becoming more liberal (maybe too much). But this only proves that these ideas are points of view, debatable and subjective. Either way, the way the characters behave is very interesting, creating situations that are very hilarious. The narrator works well and has an excellent voice. Concerning the actors, they're all big names. Bardem and Cruz, however, deserve special applause for the way they ended up standing out, starring in some of the funniest scenes. Rebecca Hall did a good job in the role of conventional Vicky, giving her special psychological depth from which she falls in love. Scarlett Johansson fulfilled her role, not surprisingly but also without disappointment. She was OK most of the time. A note of praise still for the very careful cinematography and for the choice of filming locations, who knew how to take advantage of the landscapes and tourist icons that we associate with the Catalan capital. Intelligent, beautiful, passionate, romantic, elegant... there would be several adjectives for this film. It's not enough to shut up those who hate Woody Allen but, for those like me, who are not familiar with his work, it's enough to give him more attention from now on.

This wasn't a terrible movie; Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are in it so at worse I thought it would be an average movie, which it was. I think that it was a little boring and predictable. I thought Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall were very replaceable (and maybe if they were the movie would have been better). The characters were quite lacklustre except the Spanish character who were supposed to be 'spicy' which is a word that I hate when it comes to describing people. It was a relatively forgettable movie that was overrated with boring dialogue, slightly stereotypical characters and I'm just not the biggest fan of Woody Allen.

Simply the worst Woody Allen film ever. Some funny moments some good acting do not disguise the narrative shambles. And what's with the voice-over? Although a hall-mark of some of Allens's films in here it justs rubs off as remedial. Poor poor. A gigantic disapointment for a huge Allen fan. See it to believe it.

It's almost impossible to find anything at all to like about Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Woody Allen's direction is lazy and heavy-handed, and his dialogue is completely lifeless. All the characters featured in the film are thoroughly unlikeable and impossible to relate to on any level, and every actor involved, while turning in completely competent performances, just look bored with what they are being asked to do. Instead of using a narrator as a device to drive the plot, and make some amusing comments about the events we are witnessing as he did in Annie Hall, Allen this time uses it to state the bleeding obvious, and therefore makes it completely unnecessary. The very worst of the film's numerous crimes, however, is the message about love it attempts to communicate, which is insulting to men, women and everyone's intelligence. Basically, Allen would have us believe that all women are either easy (like Scarlett Johansson's Cristina) or prude (like Rebecca Hall's Vicky) but both types of women can be seduced by a pretty disgusting misogynist so long as he's got nice eyes and a sexy accent (which describes Javier Bardem's Juan Antonio perfectly). The only smiles raised for the entire film are embarrassed ones, and you feel slightly emotionally drained by the film's conclusion, not because you've had an involving viewing experience, but because you've struggled for 95 minutes to find something to keep you watching. Still, the Spanish guitar music is nice, and Penelope Cruz makes a good crazy person.