Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona runs from promising to intriguing to agreeably incoherent to disagreeably incoherent to utter anarchy.
A little frustrating as film, yes, but one might say it successfully mirrors the pathway of romance. It certainly mirrors the pathway of the volcanic marriage of artists Maria and Juan Antonio (Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem), a disturbed, bickering couple for whom “shooting from the hip” can have uncomfortable meanings. The film traces the sensuous adventures of two American college grads Vicky and Christina (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson) as they summer in Spain and become romantically entangled with the couple.
Is The Office becoming to today’s movie culture what Friends was to the 1990s? Is Steve Carell transforming into the new Jennifer Aniston, appearing in mass-appeal star vehicles of varying quality, with the occasional indie effort thrown in for credibility? Possibly. Jenna Fischer has played supporting roles in comedies such as Judd Apatow’s Walk Hard. A Lisa Kudrow starter kit? Mmmmm, sort of.