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Vicky Cristina Barcelona, or Woody Allen’s loving tribute to Spain. And neurotic and screwed up artists. If the movie had focused on Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) and Juan Diego (Javier Bardem), we might have had a neo-Woody classic, but instead he chose to focus on his latest masturbatory nubile young obsession. It’s not that Scarlett Johansson isn’t talented, she is, the same goes for Rebecca Hall, but the characters they’re stuck with just aren’t as engaging as the two artists (they're like two female versions of Woody). Or perhaps a film about the two of them would have been too sexual and dangerous? I don’t know. Penelope Cruz did justly win her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her committed take on Sophia Loren-as-Frida Kahlo, I mean, Maria Elena. She comes into the film towards the very end, but she packs a crazed, delicious energy which the rest of the breezy, but too light film could have used.
