For much of
the last two decades, Woody Allen's movie-a-year output has seemed more force
of habit than ongoing artistic pursuit, but there's a vibrant chemistry to Vicky
Cristina Barcelona—in
the writing, in the casting, in the great Catalan city itself—that
instantly sets it apart from his recent work. Though he's managed a few
pleasant diversions in that time, like Match Point or Sweet And Lowdown or Everyone Says I Love You, it's been easy to forget that
Allen was once a keen and perceptive chronicler of the human heart and its
mysterious, fickle desires. Shooting in Europe for the fourth time following Match
Point, Scoop, and Cassandra's
Dream, Allen seizes
on the chance to weigh American notions of love against the continent's more
libertine spirit. He comes away with a witty and ambiguous movie that's simultaneously
intoxicating and suffused with sadness and doubt.
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