Threesomes

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) are two BFFs from Manhattan (how else would the director explain their neuroses?) who are spending their two summer months with a relative of Vicky’s in Barcelona. They are two enchantingly beautiful single women partaking the arts and culture of a mesmerising city,eating out,trekking museums and enjoying the spoils of a rich aunt’s luxurious mansion. Vicky is a logical,sensible young woman,engaged to a stable,cookie-cutter of a man back home. A perfect foil is Cristina—a romantic fool,looking for love only to be pained by it.

In comes Javier Bardem,as Juan Antonio,a beautiful caricature of a Latin lover that can really make you sweat. Juan Antonio is an artist and a sybarite who attacks women and the canvas with equal aggression. He invites them for a weekend of sex and sight-seeing on a chartered plane,and,er,the two ladies are soon on board.

He has an affair with both; Cristina outlasts Vicky since she’s technically single,and begins a beautiful romance that’s only enhanced by another triangle in the making. Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) is Juan Antonio’s unstable ex-wife who shows up after yet another failed suicide. Cruz,slipping between Spanish and English,is a beautiful mulatto whose animal intensity works remarkably against the other characters’ whines.

I’m not so sure one could call this film a romance,since no one gets the guy. It’s barely a comedy since the laughs are cynically induced. Like a good old Woody movie,it’s delightful nonetheless. There are phrases that only work in his narration: “provoking contact” means ‘teasing’; “mental adolescence” means ‘impulsive’; “lack of structure” is ‘bohemian’.

Typically,the director is in all his characters,as if Christopher Evan Welch’s narration isn’t enough. When Cristina apologises for getting sick over their weekend getaway,you think she’s emulating the filmmaker. When Vicky and Juan Antonio discuss their mistaken footsie,you’re sure this happened to Allen too.

The DVD is bereft of any Special Features at all. And since Allen is omnipresent in the characters,dialogue and picturesque city,you barely miss him. This film about threesomes after all—Woody,his characters and you. So who needs a footnote?