Love, actually

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
12A, Nationwide

Now, the cat among the pigeons? This is Javier Bardem — a dish of a Javier Bardem, now he’s lost the scary No Country for Old Men page-boy hairdo — as a celebrated Spanish painter who, one night, simply approaches the girls at a restaurant and invites them to come away with him for the weekend. He’s a seducer but not just any seducer. He’s an existential seducer. ‘Life is dull and painful so why not take your pleasure where you can?’ he says. He seduces one (Vicky), then the other (Cristina), who, next, enters into a ménage à trois with him and his homicidal, suicidal ex-wife, Maria Elena, played by Penélope Cruz with dark watchful eyes and the most fantastic, furious fizz. Ms Cruz also has a look that screams ‘sex’ — where was I when they were giving out the looks that screams ‘sex’? Rebecca Hall doesn’t have a look that screams ‘sex’, but that’s all right because, unless things have changed, she is still ‘one of the world’s most intriguing young talents’. You can’t have everything, love.

The film has been billed as a comedy although as there is probably only the one proper, laugh-out-loud moment — towards the end, concerning a bullet wound — it’s not exactly up there with Allen’s early, New York films, the ones he is rather scornful about even though, as Peter Ustinov once noted, ‘Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.’ Still, this is a nicely relaxed, perfectly watchable film shot is such gorgeously glowing honey-lemon tones you may want to lick the screen. The cast all appear to be having an excellent time, which is always a joyful thing to see, although, in acting terms, the Spaniards probably do blow the Americans out of the water. Bardem, as the Latin lover who turns out not to fit the stereotype, is broodingly delicious while Cruz, playing the queen of mood swings, has a look that screams ‘mad’ as well as ‘sex’. (I only ever wanted ‘sex’.) However, what I would ask is this: do we really need another film about women seeking fulfilment through men? Or am I only saying that out of bitterness, because I’m pretty sure that, when it comes down to it, it was an umbrella. It did feel unusually damp. Actually, I’m now quite hoping it was.

OK, what does it all mean? Ah, yes. That is the question, and it’s a question that abounds. It’s as if Allen is physically shifting the question mark from one scene to the next. Once love is fulfilled, does it cease to be romantic? Is love the meaning of life? Should you follow your bliss, or not follow your bliss? Which is the truer tragedy: the love that explodes excitingly but then doesn’t last, or the love that lasts, but in Westchester? Does love mean never having to say you are sorry? Actually, we know the answer to that last one: yes. Or, if it isn’t, I’m not telling Ali. You do it.