Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz
The Buzz: Nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category
The Run: Won Golden Globe for Best Picture (Comedy or Musical)
Thank god we have Clint Eastwood. And thank god we have Woody Allen. One of the most gifted people of our times, Woody Allen is perhaps the only depressing-looking guy that can induce such energy into anyone. And those scripts. And those scripts. And those scripts… He has returned with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, with a script that isn’t as jaw-dropping as Match Point (2005) but fantastic in its own way.
We follow the lives of the two clearly defined titular characters – Vicky, played lovingly by Rebecca Hall, is a very conventional person. She knows her boundaries. Her morals are moderate and her opinions on love, platonic. She believes in commitment to love and nobility of the same. Scarlett Johansson’s Cristina is the quintessential free-loving European with absolutely extreme opinions on love and the restrictions it imposes. They meet Juan (Javier Bardem) in Barcelona, a divorced artist who is seeking to restore his inspiration. Both the girls find him totally wild and so different in their own way. Now leave it to Woody Allen to bring the essentially Almodóvar-esque twist to the plot. Enter Penelope Cruz. Cristina realizes how all her ideologies are no more than youth’s desperate fantasies. Now these are just a fraction of the twists and turns the roller coaster film goes through. Woody Allen elicits extremely natural performances from his stars with Cruz standing out in style.