When Woody Allen moved his films out of provincial Manhattan, New York City, well, let’s just say the vacation does him good. And Vicky Cristina Barcelona, shot in the honey-hued Spanish city amongst the splendours of Gaudi’s edifices, Allen is at his creative finest.

Only last week, Vicky Cristina Barcelona picked up the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy. The theme of the film ensures it will never have an India release (remember we did ban the superbly nuanced and cleverly misanthropic Closer), a DVD rental seemed to be a no-brainer.

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.

... contd.