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Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Article published 16th Dec 08
Vicky Cristina Barcelona Watch

What:
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

When:
Out Dec 26

Watch the trailer:
Here

Win:
We have 10 dbl passes to give away! To win one, email win@threethousand.com.au with the subject line ‘I'll go to your movie, but you'll have to seduce me'

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Woody Allen may have shifted to sunny Catalonia with a Spanish crew, but you'll have to prise his trademark blend of sentimentality and bourgeois satire - and his favourite typeface - from his cold, dead hands.

Scarlett Johansson plays Cristina, the Free-Spirited Sexpot; Rebecca Hall is Vicky, the Uptight WASP. Javier Bardem is Juan Antonio, the improbably suave artist who seduces them both, while Penélope Cruz plays his ex-wife, Maria Elena, as a cross between Amy Winehouse and Frida Kahlo.

It's a gorgeous yet dispiriting film. The smug narrator (Christopher Evan Welch) has everyone pegged from the start, making the characters' yearnings seem pretentious and futile. Maria Elena is mad as a brush, yet sharp enough to mock Cristina's dilettantish bohemianism. Vicky can't speak Spanish, yet is writing a thesis on Catalan culture. And her fiancé Doug (Chris Messina) is so comically dull he's intriguing.

Despite not even getting her picture on the poster, Hall rises above the other actors' deftly drawn caricatures (although I'm not sure Scarlett realises she's a caricature) with a performance full of bittersweet, unexpressed longing. Vicky's tragedy - and the film's - is that awakening to romantic possibilities simply isn't enough.

By Mel Campbell

Format: Cinema

Genre: Drama

Keywords: Woody Allen

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