Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Last night, for my last time hanging out with Kendra before she moves again (this time to NYC), we grabbed a beer, played a little pool, and saw Woody Allen's newest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Having seen a couple of Allen's more recent films (Match Point and Scoop) and not liking them all that much, I was a little hesitant about seeing this film, but when I heard Javier Bardem was in it and it was actually set in Barcelona (i.e. the 'Barcelona' in the title wasn't referring to someone's name), Barcelona being the most unique city I've ever been too, I was pretty much sold.

Fortunately, the movie was really good. The love 'pentagon' (although 'pentangle' sounds much cooler) in the film (yes, five people were involved) evolves in a pretty interesting way, the acting was solid, and the message concerning the eternal question about the meaning of love or of true happiness in a relationship in general was realized thoughtfully and with skill. Thus, this film was much better than the other two Woody Allen films I had seen lately, presumably almost as much to do with the great acting (especially that of Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall) as with Allen's directing and screenwriting prowess.

One small caveat with the film though was that it didn't quite capture the vibe of Barcelona all that well. In fact, despite hitting a bunch of the famous tourist spots, most of the film's locale might as well have been anywhere in Southern Europe. Still, this film did manage to make me yearn to live in Europe once again, so I suppose it was successful enough!