Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Good news: Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen's most enjoyable film in a decade (Match Point may have been a more completely accomplished film, but it was also a bit airless and oppressive). There are a lot of laughs, plenty of magnificent Spanish scenery and an interesting and complex love triangle (or is it a quadrangle). The film does have some flaws, though.

The 800-pound gorilla in this film is the voice-over narration. There is a lot of it, perhaps the most I've ever heard in a film, and at times seems like a filmed audio-book. It is read by a flat voice of someone who is not in the film, and seems to be there to give the film the appearance of being adapted from a novel. It would send Robert McKee into fits of rage.

I wondered what it would be like to watch the film without it. There is little information given that could not be deduced from the action, but it does generate a few laugh lines. It would seem to violate the dictum of "show, not tell," and if anyone hates the experience because of it I wouldn't begrudge them.

However, I still enjoyed myself. The story concerns two young American woman, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall, spending a summer in Barcelona. Hall is engaged to a blandly handsome and wealthy fellow, Chris Messina (fifty years ago this would have been termed the "Ralph Bellamy role"), while Johansson, who has yearnings to be an artist, is adrift in both her career and her love life. They meet a smoothly sexy painter, Javier Bardem, who is so self-confident that he approaches them at a restaurant as a complete stranger and invites them to spend the weekend with them, where they will see the sites, drink wine, and make love.

The scene is terrific, as all of the actors completely encapsulate who they are. Hall is outraged by Bardem's aggressiveness, while the more adventurous Johansson is intrigued. Bardem's painter is simply who he is, a bedroom-eyed seducer, but still hung up on his tempestuous ex-wife, even though she stabbed him with a razor.

Needless to say, romantic entanglements ensue. Both women end up attracted to Bardem, but Hall pulls back and sticks to her fiance. Barden and Johansson move into together, and all seems well until his ex-wife, Penelope Cruz, comes back into his life. She is mentally unstable but he can't get her out of his system, as she inspires his art and is, well, that kind of crazy/beautiful that has been the bane of men's existences for ages. Soon the three of them form a cozy menage a trois, as Cruz realizes that Johansson is the missing ingredient that allows her and Bardem to be happy together. This is, of course, venturing into creepy male fantasy territory, but a worthy topic of exploration, as human relationships certainly can be complicated, and these characters are vivid and well-written and acted.

The notion that Americans can be rejuvenated by the exoticism of foreigners is sometimes an over-worked theme, but it works here, particularly with the character of Hall, who I think is the focal point of the piece, as it is her story that provides the spine. Cruz will get the most attention, though, probably inserting herself into the Best Supporting Actress Oscar conversation. She plays a spitfire, but creates a reasonably real person and holds back from all-out scenery chewing. Johansson, who I had started to wonder if the early talent she had exhibited was illusory, is used well here by Allen. Cruz sums her up as being someone who has "chronic dissatisfaction," and she manages to be both sexy and interesting.

After the many lackluster films over the Allen's latest decade, I was heartened to see that he hasn't completely lost his touch. I think it also helped that I saw this in a theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where even the mention of Bedford Hills can get a laugh. Though he's now made four films in a row outside of his beloved home town, he's still essentially a New York filmmaker.