Now on DVD: “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”

From the editor: I had planned for this post to be published in the morning, but, due to a sickly child and some other obligations, it was pushed down the list of priorities for the day. It was eventually written in the dark of my daughter’s room, where I was commanded to sit until she fell asleep. I was happy to oblige, because the opportunity to listen to her breathe while I write is the thing I am most grateful for in my life. Now, on to that unrepentent old lech, Woody Allen.

I need to start by saying that few people have derived more pleasure from the oeuvre of Woody Allen than I. I came to his movies late (it was a campus screening of “The Purple Rose of Cairo” when I was a freshman), but I dove in and, like Mia Farrow’s character in “Purple Rose,” virtually stepped into the films and spent great chunks of my 20s in his WASPy-wannabe Upper East Side world of writers, actors, professors, artists, comedians, singers, therapists, journalists, doctors and gallery owners. I loved the Gershwin, the architecture, the mental masturbation. So I feel that, other than Mia herself, no one has better grounds from which to criticize Woody Allen.

I‘m trying to be patient as I wait out the Scarlett Johansson era. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is her third movie with Allen, and instead of playing the American Slut in London as she did in “Match Point” and “Scoop,” here she’s the American Slut in Barcelona. If only Allen could get her in the sack we could quit having to watch him screw her vicariously. (Woody – I could suggest dozens of other comely actresses to be your muse. Hey, why don’t you see what Diane’s doing? It would save her from having to make post-”Something’s Gotta Give” schlock like “Because I Said So.”)

Johansson is Cristina, who comes to Barcelona for the summer with her friend Vicky (Rebecca Hall). Vicky is working on her thesis, on “The Catalan Identity,” though she’s never studied the language. She’s engaged to a rich, boring preppie back in Manhattan. She and Cristina are propositioned by Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), an artist, one night at dinner. Cristina’s all “hell, yeah,” while Vicky gives him one of the uptight, cerebral smackdowns commonly found in Allen’s movies. (It’s not explained why these two very different women are close enough friends to travel together.) A love triangle forms, which spins off into another when Juan Antonio’s crazy-sexy-eccentric ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), shows up.

Vicky becomes ambivalent about her upcoming marriage but goes through with it anyway; Cristina can’t figure out if she wants to be a filmmaker or a photographer; and Maria Elena smokes a lot. And there’s sex and gorgeous scenery.

It ranks at the bottom of the top half of Allen’s movies by virtue of being one that he doesn’t star in. Those are always better than the ones he’s in. They’re less slapsticky, at least. And it’s a treat, given the state of the economy and the weakness of the American dollar, that he’s taking us to beautiful European cities in this stretch of his career. God knows I can’t afford to travel now. But it’s just so, academic. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” even has a narrator in an attempt to make the characters’s whining seem like real problems. It doesn’t go anywhere, except to bed.

And while I’d love to credit Allen with casting Javier Bardem, it’s so transparent the way the hot actor of the moment always ends up in a Woody movie right after they hit the mainstream. Woody’s like a talk show producer always on the hunt for the big “get,” or like KoMut guys of “Will & Grace” with their revolving door of guest stars.

And then there’s this: 

You’re making it very hard to defend your choices, guy. 

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