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WOODY IN RETURN TO FORM SHOCK

I know, I know—every time a Woody Allen film comes along, the critics fall over themselves to hail it a return to form, only to apologise afterwards and admit that they got carried away. But “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”, which opens in Britain this week, really is the funny, sad, sharply ironic comeback which few of us believed would ever happen.

The most pleasurable film the 73-year-old Allen has made in a decade, it brings fresh vitality to some of his familiar obsessions. Its protagonists, of course, are neurotic New Yorkers, but rather than being the usual Woody substitutes, they’re young women (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall), and the setting isn’t Manhattan but Spain, where they spend a summer basking in the fairy-tale architecture and honey-coloured sunlight. Hall—hiding her British roots with a flawless Mia Farrow accent—is Vicky, the sensible one who’s about to marry a businessman. Johansson is Cristina, who sees herself as an arty nonconformist. But the friends’ neatly defined self-images get muddled when they encounter two genuine bohemians, a fantastically seductive painter, Javier Bardem, and his explosive ex-wife, Penelope Cruz. With a quartet of sparkling performances, it could be the first Woody Allen film to leave you hungry for a sequel. “Vicky Cristina Madrid”, anyone? 

~ NICHOLAS BARBER