Vicky Cristina Barcelona | Little White Lies

Vicky Cristi­na Barcelona

05 Feb 2009 / Released: 06 Feb 2009

Three people relaxing on a grassy hillside surrounded by trees and mountains.
Three people relaxing on a grassy hillside surrounded by trees and mountains.
2

Anticipation.

Woody Allen goes on holiday to Spain. Brings a camera.

3

Enjoyment.

Bardem and Cruz: hotter than the sun.

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In Retrospect.

As thin and well-worn as a Spanish postcard, but undeniably sexy and funny.

Woody Allen serves up a siz­zling roman­tic dra­ma with three seduc­tive cen­tral performances.

Until an hour or so into Woody Allen’s thir­ty-ninth film as writer/​director, there’s only one rea­son to watch it. Swap­ping No Coun­try For Old Men’s bowl hair­cut and killer stare for an open-necked shirt and design­er stub­ble, Javier Bar­dem is the sex­i­est man you’ve ever seen on screen. He’s so damn sexy, he almost makes you for­get the ludi­crous, paper-thin clichés of Allen’s sto­ry. Almost.

On hol­i­day in Barcelona, bal­anced brunette Rebec­ca Hall (love­ly but under-stretched) and impetu­ous blonde Scar­lett Johans­son (beau­ti­ful but bland) are chat­ted up by Bardem’s bohemi­an Span­ish lothario. He’s rich; he’s wit­ty; he paints; he loves wine; he adores gui­tar; he wants to shag them both. This being a film, they throw cau­tion to the wind and go to stay with this per­fect stranger. Lots of voiceover and roman­tic entan­gle­ment ensue, but even­tu­al­ly bore­dom begins to intrude.

Then it hap­pens: sui­ci­dal ex-wife Pené­lope Cruz gate­crash­es for some of the fieri­est, fun­ni­est bab­ble-of-the-sex­es motor-mouthing in a long, long time. Non-exis­tent in Eng­lish roles, superb in Span­ish ones, Cruz here sets the film on fire every sec­ond she’s on screen. Between them, Bar­dem and Cruz cause fizzing, molten fire­works of pas­sion and jeal­ousy that sim­ply didn’t exist in Allen’s script. And yes, Cruz does get it on with Johans­son. But blink and you’ll miss it.

No doubt about it, Allen’s lat­est throw­away rom-com is utter­ly sil­ly, for­get­table and pre­dictable. It’s also his most pure­ly enter­tain­ing film in years.

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