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.