Weekend Flick Pick
This film is the best film that Woody Allen has produced in an age!
I like Woody Allen Films; but prefer the ones from when he'd just started out (Bananas, Take the Money and Run). The comedy in the early films is very slapstick. Allen initially was a stand-up comic, and this really shows in these films. With "Hannah and her Sisters", Allen found the neurotic, nerdy, self obsessed blueprint for most of the work that was to come later. Cristina Vicky Barcelona is a bit of a departure from this. It's a wonderfully perceptive tale of the choices that young women make when looking for love. The story follows two young female American friends taking some time out in Barcelona. it's safe to say that they have very different personality types!
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is the sensible one; her fiancé is her "ideal" man - steady, regular and reliable. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), on the other hand doesn't really know what she wants, but does know what she doesn't want: A man that is - steady, regular and reliable! Cue Juan Antonio, played by the gorgeous Javier Bardem. Of course, the inevitable happens; they both fall for the same guy. What isn't expected however, is the return of Juan Antonio's dramatic, and possibly slightly insane ex-wife María Elena, played brilliantly by Penelope Cruz. Chaos ensues.
Nice. I still feel a bit torn about this movie, in Woody neurotic style perhaps. Yeah it talks about the different choices women can make etc and yes it looks gorgeous (ofcourse its Barcelona!) but, I don't know: an old man telling us about how 20 somethings roll? If I had prescription glasses, I'd wobble them nervously :)
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