Movie Review: Ferrari (2023)

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: Michael Mann  

Starring: Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey, Sarah Gadon  

Running Time: 130 minutes  

Synopsis: It's 1957, and Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is struggling to maintain control of the company he founded with his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) after the Second World War. Still grieving the recent death of his son, Enzo is facing financial difficulties and an on-track challenge from Maserati, all while juggling Laura with his long-term secret lover Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). He hires driver Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone) in preparation for the Mille Miglia, a grueling endurance race that may represent Ferrari's last chance to attract investment.

What Works Well: This biography focuses on one year in the life of a legendary sports car tycoon, and Troy Kennedy Martin's script succeeds in revealing some depth to Enzo's character. An otherwise stoic Adam Driver mines the foundation of Ferrari's emotionless reaction to death (he lost two friends on the same weekend in his racing days), and in perhaps the best scene, expounds on his ruthless competitive philosophy. The final quarter is dominated by racing action, and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt excels in conveying the raw speed of a dangerous event through scenic Italian locations.

What Does Not Work As Well:  A large back-end investment in the Mille Miglia is not supported by sufficient introductions, unbalancing narrative foundations. Director Michael Mann collects several previously incidental racing drivers and unleashes them in identical looking machines. Suddenly thrust into the centre of attention, the drivers remain indistinguishable in their driver's seats, while the race format is never explained. Elsewhere, various plot threads are left dangling, neither Ferrari's search for investment nor his complex relationships with Laura and Lina arriving at satisfactory resolutions, despite the lengthy running time.

Conclusion: Demonstrates good speed, but sputters on the way to the finish line.



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Movie Review: Sahara (2005)

An action-packed adventure, Sahara combines a wacky search for a lost ship with a rapidly-spreading medical crisis in the African desert. A bouncy attitude augments non-stop thrills, escapes, and investigative heroics.

In the final days of the American Civil War, the Confederate ironclad ship Texas is the last vessel to escape the Union naval blockade. The ship disappears, its fate lost to history.

In the present day, ex-Navy buddies Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) work for an underwater exploration company independently funded by the wealthy and retired Admiral James Sandecker (Willam H. Macy). In Nigeria, a shady dealer provides Dirk with a gold coin believed to be from Texas and originating in Mali, where a civil war rages between warlord Kazim (Lennie James) and the Tuareg.

Concurrently, World Health Organization doctor Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) is investigating a deadly disease spreading in the area, and she hitches a ride into Mali with Dirk and Al. Businessman Yves Massarde (Lambert Wilson), a Kazim ally, is not pleased to see Dr. Rojas and the ship hunters poking into his affairs and sets out to stop them by all means necessary.

An adaptation of the Clive Cussler book, Sahara carries a glossy Indiana Jones vibe and a strong sense of fun. Although the troubled and over-budget production resulted in four credited writers and multiple law suits, the film is a rollicking and enjoyable thrill ride. Director Breck Eisner makes good use of gorgeous scenery and adopts a galloping pace to keep up with the wild material, leveraging the joint charisma of stars Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn to deliver multiple highlights.

And it is the lead duo that differentiates Sahara. Beyond bantering buddies, thorny friends, and leader-sidekick dynamics, Dirk and Al are a (mostly) well-oiled partnership adept at on-the-fly problem solving and improvisation. Zahn adds scrappy charm, wit, and inventiveness, perfectly complementing McConaughey's bold self-assurance as they work their way out of seemingly impossible jams.

The plots threads together two stories, an urgent investigation of a spreading disease merging with a more playful - if not self-consciously bizarre - search for a lost Confederate war ship that somehow ended up in the African desert. Penelope Cruz as Dr. Rojas carries the weight of the medical quest, but is only modestly successful at transforming the duo into a trio while providing the requisite romantic interest.

The action highlights are all ridiculous, ridiculously fun, and spiked with sometimes wicked humour. On the Niger river, Dirk and Al tangle with several of Kazim's power boats plus one technical machine gun. Stunt performers have fun with a camel-enabled train take-over. A desert escape features the cargo bed of a pick-up truck then a plane wreck turned into a land yacht. An impressively massive solar-powered facility is discovered in the desert, setting up a raucous finale, which is then upstaged by the real climax in the desert, where old and new technology meet on the battlefield.

Devoid of any demands for intellectual or emotional commitment, Sahara bounces on the dunes of exhilaration.



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Movie Review: Pain And Glory (2019)

A portrait of a once-famous film director navigating enforced retirement, Pain And Glory is a low-key drama exploring a life of struggle and passion.

In Madrid, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is a once-famous film director suffering through numerous physical ailments including a bad back. The severe pain prevents him from even thinking of directing again. One of his old films is selected for a retrospective festival, prompting Salvador to reconnect with actor Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia). The two men had a falling out over artistic differences, but now older and supposedly wiser they become friends, Alberto supplying Salvador with heroin to blunt the persistent pain.

Old tensions between the two men re-emerge, and the heroin habit becomes a dependency. But Alberto insists on performing a one-man play based on one of Salvador's short stories, resulting in another unexpected emotive reunion. Meanwhile, in flashbacks, Salvador recalls his difficult upbringing, including the sacrifices of his mother Jacinta (Penélope Cruz) and his earliest awakening to physical attraction.

A semi-autobiographical effort from writer and director Pedro Almodóvar, Pain And Glory goes to the sad place where glamour and applause yield to memories and regrets. This is an intimate portrait of a man who has experienced professional highs but is now flirting with depression caused by loneliness, emptiness, and omnipresent physical pain. It's not exactly exhilarating subject matter, and the film unfolds slowly, with plenty of soul but fitful energy.

With Penélope Cruz in typically vivacious form, Salvador's childhood flashbacks are presented through a romanticized lens, Jacinta an enterprising and resourceful hero insisting her son secures an education despite financial hardship.

But the glory years are entirely missing and only inferred, and this omission handicaps the narrative. Almodóvar demands sympathy for Salvador as a celebrated artist going through a dark period, and Antonio Banderas' delicate, understated performance elicits the necessary autumnal tones. But the missing middle means the poverty of early years and the pain of advancing age bookend unstated achievements and unexplored emotions.

Better are the innovative devices used to recollect various life chapters. The flashbacks are augmented by Alberto's stage performance reliving Salvador's most passionate love affair, then a modern-day reunion marking the passage of time and divergent fortunes. More elaborate is a flashback to a more recent time with Jacinda, and a most elegantly staged fortuitous discovery at an art show.

Pain And Glory is a staid but still eloquent commentary on a life at the crossroads, buckling in agony but leaning on the past to resist surrender.



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Movie Review: Nine (2009)

A musical drama, Nine explores middle age creative block in a story about a film director and the women in his life.

Rome, 1965. Famed Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is supposed to start shooting his next movie, but has no script and no ideas. Haunted by the failure of his two most recent films, he escapes to an Anzio hotel to try and find inspiration. He lies to his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) and is joined by his mistress Carla (Penélope Cruz). Costume designer Liliane (Judi Dench) tries to help, while Guido has visions of his mother (Sophia Loren) and memories of his childhood, when he was entranced by prostitute Saraghina (Fergie).

After reporter Stephanie (Kate Hudson) tries to seduce Guido, the last opportunity for a creative boost may be his regular leading lady Claudia Jenssen (Nicole Kidman). But with Luisa's patience with her philandering husband finally running out, salvaging Guido's latest project will prove difficult.

An adaptation of the play by Arthur Kopit which in turn was inspired by Fellini's 8½ (1963), Nine enjoys a stellar cast but is hampered by uninspired music and a consistently dour tone. The songs by Maury Yeston feature lyrics where clunky competes with obvious, and while Rob Marshall directs with panache, the script co-written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella gives him limited material to work with.

The film is entirely bogged down by Guido's doldrums and never generates narrative momentum. The tone is set early, the film structured as one-woman-at-a-time singing about her influence over the deeply flawed and egotistical director. Mistress, wife, confidant, mother, prostitute-from-childhood, muse: nothing helps him gain traction on his latest project, but he never misses an opportunity to light another cigarette.

The cast members bring a mix of interesting accents to the singing, for example Day-Lewis singing in an Italian clip, raising curious questions as to why anyone would sing in a language other than their mother tongue when entirely alone.

But despite several structural weaknesses, Nine benefits from a sparkling cast in good form. Guido is probably one of Day-Lewis' easier characters to embody, but he brings his reliable depth and dedication to the role. The many women rotating in his orbit are brought to life by energetic performances from Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, and Judi Dench, although none of them receive substantial screen time.

In an awkward role obviously bolted on to the movie adaptation, Kate Hudson appears unsure what her character is supposed to be doing, but delivers Cinema Italiano with plenty of verve. The better musical numbers also include Cruz's seductive A Call From The Vatican and Cotillard's angry Take It All.

Nine carries a haughty self-rating, but is more of a middling effort.

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Movie Review: Murder On The Orient Express (2017)

An ensemble murder mystery set on board a train, Murder On The Orient Express assembles plenty of talented performers and strands them in the snow.

It's 1934, and after finishing an assignment in Jerusalem, celebrated Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) travels to Istanbul and boards the Orient Express on the way to London. Businessman Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp) is also on the train, and tries to hire Poirot as a bodyguard, but the detective finds Ratchett distasteful and refuses. Ratchett is soon found dead in his compartment, stabbed multiple times. With the train stuck in the snow and awaiting a rescue crew, Poirot has to investigate and solve the murder.

The suspects from among the fellow passengers include the stern Princess Dragomiroff (Judi Dench) and her traveling companion Pilar (Penélope Cruz), society lady Caroline Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer), Doctor Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom Jr.), rude German Gerhard Hardman (Willem Dafoe) and governess Mary Debenham (Daisy Ridley). Poirot discovers that Ratchett is really the criminal known as Cassetti, who was involved in the shocking abduction and killing of the child Daisy Armstrong years prior, a murder that shocked America. Plenty of people want Cassetti dead, including many who happen to be on the train.

Directed by Branagh with a script by Michael Green, the adaptation of the celebrated Agatha Christie novel is old fashioned, out of touch and out of place. A far cry from the classic 1974 version, this unnecessary remake never finds a groove and stumbles around searching for the right platform. Devoid of drama, tension, mood or memorable characters, the film falls flat.

The large cast is remarkably underutilized, the actors and actresses reduced to glorified cameos. With too much time spent on Poirot's introspective angst, the plot details are often pulled from nowhere, the detective regularly making sweeping discoveries and conclusions based on very little. Too many facts and explanations are then crammed into an unsatisfying ending, any emotional impact behind the murder and the motive well and truly lost in the snowy Yugoslav mountains.

Branagh deploys fluid camera movement to try and break out of the train's confines, but the CGI for the external shots of the train snaking through the terrain is cheesy and overused.

Poirot’s over-elaborate moustache, featuring multiple waves on either end, is disconcerting, and wedges itself as an annoying traveling companion. Among the many crimes on display, the obtrusive facial hair is most deserving of painful plucking.

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Movie Review: The Counselor (2013)

An uneven drug smuggling thriller, The Counselor wastes its premise on pretentious tangential topics.

The Counselor (Michael Fassbender) is deeply in love with his girlfriend Laura (Penélope Cruz) and travels to Amsterdam to buy her an expensive engagement diamond. He is also secretly broke, and turns to his friend Reiner (Javier Bardem) to get involved in a drug deal with potential for a huge return. Reiner's latest girlfriend is the wild vixen Malkina (Cameron Diaz). Reiner connects The Counselor with middleman Westray (Brad Pitt), who arranges the money transfer and sets the deal in motion.

In Mexico the large drug shipment is hidden in a sewage truck and crosses the border into the United States. By coincidence The Counselor's imprisoned client Ruth (Rosie Perez) asks for his help to extricate her son out of an extreme speeding offence. He obliges, unaware that the young man is known as the Green Hornet and is a key part of the drug transfer chain. When the Green Hornet is decapitated and the drug shipment stolen, The Counselor's life unravels as the victimized cartel moves in to seek bloody revenge on all involved.

Directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy, The Counselor boasts a tremendous cast and lavish production values, but still manages to miss the mark by a wide margin.  This is a talky would-be thriller that invests substantive time in all the wrong areas.

Almost all the problems reside in McCarthy's too clever by half screenplay. The characters enjoy long scenes of dialogue, and McCarthy sees fit to have them converse about philosophy, sexual antics including masturbation with vehicles, the obscure details of diamond quality, and confessions to Catholic priests. Most of these topics have little if anything to do with the plot or the character evolutions. The script expounds on the drug cartel's fondness for a gruesome strangulation assassination device and snuff films. It goes without saying that both items will play a role later in the film, but the telegraphing is hopelessly obvious.

Critical details, such as the cause and extent of The Counselor's money problems, are skipped entirely. Seemingly important characters are dropped late into the film with no explanation. As the world closes in on him The Counselor makes tracks to Mexico, and suddenly he is receiving a lecture on the realities of life and the consequences of decision making from Jefe (Rubén Blades), a high-ranking but previously unannounced cartel member.

Meanwhile Scott directs the few scenes of action with plenty of verve, as the journey of the decrepit sewage truck emerges as the most interesting aspect of the film. But despite the slick delivery, the pawns are on display but the puppet masters remain hidden. The Counselor shows us the dramatic outcomes of some serious scheming, but lazily skips the intellectual effort of having the plotters explain themselves. After all, it is more fun to show a woman gyrating against the windshield of a sportscar than engage in actually relevant discourse.

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Movie Review: To Rome With Love (2012)

An episodic comedy romance with some fantasy elements, Woody Allen's To Rome With Love offers mild amusement but minimal substance through four unrelated vignettes.

American tourist Hayley (Alison Pill) meets and falls in love with Italian lawyer Michelangelo. When Hayley's parents Jerry and Phyllis (Allen and Judy Davis) arrive in Rome for a visit, Jerry, a recently retired opera producer, discovers that Michelangelo's father Giancarlo, a funeral home director, has a magnificent singing voice, but only when he is in the shower.

Young student architect Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) lives with his girlfriend Sally (Greta Gerwig). When Sally's alluring friend Monica (Ellen Page) comes for a visit, Jack can't help but fall in love with Monica's seemingly sophisticated charms. John Foy (Alec Baldwin), a successful architect revisiting Rome where he once lived, provides spectral advise to Jack. John and Jack may be the same person, 30 years apart.

Antonio and Milly are newlyweds from a rural town who have just relocated to Rome to start a new life and seek better jobs. Inadvertently separated, Antonio finds himself in the compromising company of vivacious prostitute Anna (Penelope Cruz); he has to pretend that Anna is Milly in front of his stuffy relatives. Meanwhile Milly stumbles onto a film set and allows herself to be seduced by famous Italian movie star actor Luca Salta.

Leopoldo (Robert Benigni) is an average office clerk with a mundane life. One day he wakes up and inexplicably finds himself an unlikely celebrity, with media and paparazzi hordes chasing after him with microphones and cameras and documenting his every move.

A flighty exercise in saluting the ethereal beauty of a city, To Rome With Love is almost astonishing in its lack of depth. While all four stories offer a benign level of enjoyment, the film is the equivalent of flipping through a glossy travel magazine; the articles are at best quick glance-through fluff, the pictures professional but also exceptionally familiar. The entire exercise is wholly forgettable moments after it ends.

While none of the stories carry any impact, a couple offer some marginal entertainment. Allen sporadically infuses a common theme of unexpected but non-threatening interventions altering the planned course of life, with the diversions from a charted course coming with both a smile and no explanation needed. The imaginative elements of the film work well, John Foy as a ghostly presence drifting in and out of Jack's life and Leopoldo's sudden detour into an alternate celebrity reality carrying some intrigue.

Antonio and Milly experiencing a chaotic start to their life in Rome appears to be a parable for the temptations of the big city, and is less successful. Least interesting of all is Allen inserting his typical neurotic New Yorker persona into the Roman context. The tiresome opera-singer-in-the-shower story starts out as not funny and is then stretched well past its breaking point.

To Rome With Love is Allen at his flimsiest, offering some old-world eye candy with a side of empty calories.

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Movie Review: Volver (2006)

A story about working class women and their generations-spanning struggles to clean up after their men, Volver is a cleverly constructed drama with plenty of earthy humour.

In a working class Madrid suburb, Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) is grinding out a living to raise her 14 year old daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo). The family finances get worse when Raimunda's partner Paco loses his job. Raimunda and her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas) are orphans after their mother Irene and their father died in a fire a few years prior. The sisters travel to their ancestral village to visit elderly Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave) and find her in the late stages of dementia babbling as if her sister Irene was still around. The village is rife with rumours that the ghost of Irene is indeed hovering. Aunt Paula's neighbour Augustina (Blanca Portillo) keeps an eye on the old lady, but Augustina has troubles of her own: her mother has disappeared and not been seen for years.

Tragedy strikes when Paco attempts to rape Raimunda's daughter Paula, claiming that he is not her father. The young girl fights back and stabs Paco to death. Raimunda conceals the body in the freezer of a nearby closed-for-business restaurant. When an unexpected opportunity arises for Raimunda to operate the restaurant and make some money, things appear to be looking up despite the body stuffed in the freezer. But then back in the village Aunt Paula finally expires, and an unlikely visitor moves in with Sole.

Directed and written by Pedro Almodóvar, Volver ("to go back" in Spanish) tap dances on the edge where black comedy meets the drama of life. The film is sneaky funny, creating situations that should be more tragedy than comedy but nevertheless trigger reminders that life can be absurd in any context. And Volver is almost exclusively about the rollercoaster of life as experienced by women, three generations bracketed by name from the young Paula to her elderly great Aunt Paula.

The theme of women as the guardians of society is the film's most powerful current. The story starts with women cleaning the graveyards of their family members, and the comment that around these parts, women outlive men. And indeed, the male characters are mainly notable by their absence: the restaurant owner takes off early; Raimunda's father is a dead presence best not discussed; and the useless Paco meets a bloody end.

It is left to the women to hold together society's threads, and this they do with a startling matter of factness. Both the ghost of Irene and Augustina look after Aunt Paula. Raimunda looks after her daughter Paula and the restaurant. Paula looks after herself. Both Raimunda and Sole, who runs an illegal salon, do what is needed to survive and carry on, well outside the confines of the law. Almodóvar squarely hits the target of his women-as-society's-cleansing-agents thesis: with Paco's lifeless bloody bleeding in the middle of Raimunda's kitchen, she expertly soaks up his blood with a domestic mop and bucket.

Penelope Cruz as Raimunda, Lola Dueñas as Sole, Blanca Portillo as Augustina, Carmen Maura as Irene and Yohana Cobo as the younger Paula bring the women to life, and they deliver stellar performances filled with the clear-eyed determination of blue collar pragmatism. But as hard as she tries to convey a working class ethos, Cruz's lusciously glamorous looks can't help but undermine her credentials as a woman mired near the poverty line.

As Almodóvar unspools his story, the ghosts of the past begins to find an echo in the present, with Raimunda not really surprised to find herself in the middle of recurring tragic comedies involving revenge, death and retribution. Even bad men need to find peace either through life or death, and of course it will be the watchful women, ghosts or not, who will go back as necessary to help them find a final resting place -- and then keep it clean.

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Movie Review: Vanilla Sky (2001)

In a remake of the 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes, Tom Cruise disfigures his face in a bizarre science fiction romance that alternates between magical moments and utter incoherence. Vanilla Sky ultimately pulls itself together, but cannot fully discard an annoying aura of irritating smugness.

David Aames (Cruise) has inherited the vast riches of his father's publishing empire, and he is enjoying the playboy life of being young, handsome and wealthy in New York. Model Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz) is David's friend with benefits who wishes that she was more, while author Brian Shelby (Jason Lee) is perhaps David's one true buddy.

Brian shows up at one of David's parties with new acquaintance Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz), and a connection immediately takes hold between Sofia and David. They spend the night talking and falling in love with an unfamiliar intensity, but the following morning David gets into Julie's car, and she intentionally drives off a bridge, killing herself and horribly disfiguring David.

The rehabilitation of David involves depression, re-constructive surgery, wearing a face mask, sessions with psychologist Dr. McCabe (Kurt Russell), and the technology of cryonic suspension through the services of the mysterious Life Extension corporation. Although he appears to salvage the relationship with Sofia, David's dejection, guilt and paranoia start to severely affect his mind, and sorting out reality from imagination becomes increasingly difficult.

Director Cameron Crowe leaves behind his normal emphasis on small human moments and overcomplicates Vanilla Sky by mixing David's flashbacks with scenes of his reality and others manufactured by his imagination. While the unhinged structure and highly artistic style maintain interest, the film is a puzzle that gets progressively more annoying rather than challenging. Just when Vanilla Sky threatens to collapse in a heap of fragmented bombast, it is rescued by a solid and emotionally fulfilling final 20 minutes that deciphers David's ordeal in a futuristic package.

Tom Cruise co-produced, and the intention of highlighting his acting talent by hiding behind a hideous facial disfigurement could not have been too far from his mind. Cruise's career will always be remembered more for his looks than his acting, a curse that handsome stars have to live with. He is a more than adequate performer, but his concentration and talent simply cannot compete with his natural charisma and the megawatt smile. His non-disfigured scenes with Cruz generate the genuine warmth of two souls falling in love that no amount of acting behind scars or a mask can match.

Cruz and Diaz bring their attractive personalities to Vanilla Sky, Cruz all coquettish Europeanisms and Diaz brash blondness dancing on the perimeter of the self-destruct button.

Vanilla Sky captivates and enthralls, agitates, bewilders and baffles. The journey is worthwhile, but it is not without some unfortunately befuddling moments.

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Movie Review: Blow (2001)

Based on a true story, Blow recounts the life of George Jung, an American who finagled his way into the burgeoning cocaine importing industry at the height of the Medellin Cartel's infamy. Despite what he may have thought, Jung himself was a small-scale player in a global business, and he was relatively quickly shuffled out of the deck of drug kingpins, landing repeatedly in jail. Blow relies on style and flair to make up for the limited talents of its central character, and Johnny Depp emits irresistible star magnetism.

George Jung (Depp) was born and raised in a working class Massachusetts family, and he has a strong attachment to his dad Fred (Ray Liotta). Fred's strong work ethic does not compensate for the lack of good business skills, and the family ends up bankrupt. In the mid 1960s George moves to California and vows to never be poor or want for anything. He establishes himself as the local beach marijuana supplier for local distributor Derek (Paul Reubens), and quickly graduates to supplying weed to New England campuses, transporting it from California in the unscrutinized luggage of airline stewardesses, including Barbara (Franka Potente), whom he married.

But the law is onto George, and he soon lands in prison, and Barbara succumbs to cancer. George meets Diego behind bars, who convinces him to graduate to cocaine trafficking. Upon his release George travels to Colombia where Diego arranges a meeting with Pablo Escobar, the brutal leader of the Medellin Cartel, emerging as the most powerful drug syndicate in the world. George becomes an importer funnelling Escobar's drugs into the hands of Derek for distribution in the US. But his downfall is already in the works.

Despite a central character who is more a go-between than an instigator, Blow is never less than interesting thanks to Depp's icy but engagingly charismatic performance, and solid support work from the rest of the cast.

Director Ted Demme, working from a script by Nick Cassavetes and David McKenna, amps up the flash factor but also keeps an eye on the human drama by maintaining a running interest in the evolving relationship between George and his father Fred. The massive wealth that George accumulates from the drug trade appears at first to be the son exceeding the father's achievements, only to become a harsh lesson emphasizing the values that Fred tried to impart to his son at an early age, values that George contrived to understand way too late in life.

The film is lacking even a passing reference to the victims of drug addiction who are the end users of George's cocaine business. Blow treats illegal drugs as any other commodity except with a more complex supply chain. If George ever gave a second thought to the misery that he was helping to create in the world, Blow isn't interested to know.

In one of life's many ironies, Demme died in 2002 at age 38, less than a year after Blow was released, of a heart-attack likely aggravated by the cocaine found in his system.

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Movie Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Woody Allen's exploration of modern romantic misadventures is clever, funny, and filled with engaging characters who are only slightly exaggerated.

The brunette Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is practical and down to earth. She is engaged to be married to Doug (Chris Messina), a nice guy with a reliable job. Her best friend, the blonde Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), is flighty and adventurous. She is looking for something, but only knows that whatever she has found so far is not it.

Vicky and Cristina decide to spend a summer in Barcelona, and soon they both meet and fall under the spell of the passionate artist Juan Antonio Gonzalo (Javier Bardem). Vicky's brief and unexpected fling with Juan Antonio knocks her world off its axis. Cristina enters into a longer term romance with Juan Antonio, but soon find herself the catalyst in the turbulent reconciliation between Juan Antonio and his former wife, the wild Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz).

As usual, Allen's characters speak the way normal people do, with unsure pauses, irony-free hesitancy, and the seemingly inadvertent stepping on each other's sentences. It's the closest that scripts come to pretending to be ad-libbed, and it immediately elevates Allen's characters closer to real people. Allen also avoids any contrived scenes of high drama and climactic emotions or confrontations, preferring as usual to deploy his low key approach that mimics real life instead of life as Hollywood likes to imagine it.

Vicky and Cristina both go through several turbulent transformations in the movie, and both Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson admirably provide the necessary understated depth to portray, with a mixture of sadness and humour, the upheaval that unexpected love can cause. 

Bardem as Juan Antonio is the eye of the hurricane, and therefore does not have to emotionally move very much as chaos reigns around him. Penelope Cruz gets the showiest role as Maria Elena, a joyfully unrestrained force of nature that splatters anyone that surrounds her with a torrent of emotions, raised to the Spanish power.

Allen directs with his usual mix of subdued artistry, allowing the actors to take centre stage while never failing to find the interesting camera angle to remind us of his talent.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is both enjoyable and captivating, and in the often unimaginative world of manufactured romantic comedies, it's a breath of fresh Mediterranean air.

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