Cristina (Johansson), on the other hand, is into suffering, passion and risk. She recently finished a 12-minute film on why love is hard to define and has just broken up with the latest of what we are led to believe is an impressive string of boyfriends.
It's Cristina, naturally, who catches the eye of rogue painter Juan Antonio (Bardem) at an art opening. He's just been through a difficult divorce from Maria Elena (Cruz), a wife who stuck a knife in him, but that doesn't stop this unabashed seducer from chatting them both up and inviting them to spend a menage-a-trois weekend with him. "Life is short and full of pain," he candidly explains, "and this is a chance for something special."
No matter what you end up thinking about "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," even if you lose patience with its travelogue cinematography and its voyeuristic approach to its young actresses, it is hard not to be entertained by the Oscar-winning Bardem, who eats this role up like it was a hot fudge sundae. Looking every inch the smoldering Latin lover, he is having the time of his life inhabiting a Valentino stereotype at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from his psychotic killer in "No Country for Old Men." In fact, Bardem's performance is so good it tends to mask how lacking much of what surrounds it is.
As the relationship among these three gets increasingly complicated, the ex-wife reenters the scene, and Cruz does vivid work as well as Maria Elena, the Queen of Mood Swings, a woman who never met a tantrum she didn't like.
Faring far less well are the other two women in the cast, both prisoners to varying degrees of Allen's weaknesses. The gifted Hall, British and with considerable stage experience, manages to at least hold her own, but Johansson's connection with Allen -- this is their third film together -- has not done her any favors.
That's because Allen's films have become increasingly underwritten and indifferently directed. "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" remains half-formed from beginning to end, sullenly refusing to resolve in any satisfactory way and getting increasingly sour and misanthropic without offering anything that even resembles a perceptive glimpse into human behavior. There is nothing wrong with Allen's determination to mix humor and drama, it's simply too bad he's not getting better at it.
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kenneth.turan@latimes.com
"Vicky Cristina Barcelona." MPAA rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality and smoking. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. In general release.
