Blame It On Barcelona.(Vicky Cristina Barcelona)(Movie review)

Byline: editor: Valerie Steiker

Woody Allen sends up American innocents abroad. John Powers reviews.

If anything seems certain in this life, it's that each year the cherry blossoms will bloom along the Potomac, the fall TV season will be declared a disappointment, and Woody Allen will have another new movie. Of course, such epic productivity (40 pictures since 1966!) is not an unalloyed blessing. Allen's made a lot of terrible films in the three decades since Annie Hall won the Oscar. Yet each time you're sure that his long career is finally kaput, he surprises you with a treat like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, an amusing romantic lark about the New World's seduction by the Old.

Two young American friends--the freewheeling Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) and more conventional Vicky (Rebecca Hall)--are spending the summer in Spain. At a Barcelona restaurant one night, they're approached by a famous painter named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who coolly proposes sleeping with them both. Although they refuse, he does talk them into taking his private plane to the Asturian city of Oviedo, where both quickly succumb to his charms. Making things trickier, this triangle is soon invaded by Juan Antonio's ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), a hilariously passionate artist who, when not attempting suicide or erupting with suspicious rage, is not opposed to the occasional threesome.

When Vicky Cristina Barcelona premiered at Cannes, something unexpected happened. Among the European critics, who still take Allen far more seriously than we do in the United States, the word-of-mouth response was that it was trivial and fake, a thick slice of Barceloney steeped in tourist cliches. They seemed not to grasp that the movie is a deliberate goof on the stereotypes of American innocents abroad. It's part of the joke that Allen's naive heroines are as wowed by the stock Barcelona attractions (Gaudi's Parc Guell, the Tibidabo amusement park overlooking the city) as they're enchanted by Juan Antonio and Maria Elena's over-the-top Iberian pasion. Unlike such tragic precursors as Henry James's Daisy Miller or Isabel Archer, who were ruined by Europe's wicked sophistication, Vicky and Cristina are modern girls who find their summer fling enlivening. It's like they've somehow stepped into a racy comedy by Pedro Almodovar.

Allen must have had the great Spanish filmmaker in mind while making this movie, and he was clearly right to do so. When his movies fall flat, it's usually because they're trapped in the same narcissistic obsessions and ...