Two friends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.Two friends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.Two friends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 32 wins & 54 nominations total
Lloll Bertran
- Juan Antonio's Friend
- (as Lloll Bertrán)
Sílvia Sabaté
- Juan Antonio's Friend
- (as Silvia Sabaté)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJavier Bardem (Juan Antonio) and Penélope Cruz (María Elena) play a divorced couple in the film. In reality, they started a relationship while working on the film and married in July 2010. However, they didn't meet on the set of this film; they met on the set of Cruz' first feature, Jamón, Jamón (1992) when she was 16.
- GoofsOviedo is referred to as part of Catalonia with Vicky continuing her research on "Catalan culture" while she is there. In fact, Oviedo is in Asturias, not Catalonia.
- Quotes
Juan Antonio: Maria Elena used to say that only unfulfilled love can be romantic.
- SoundtracksBarcelona
Composed by Giulia Tellarini, Maik Alemany, Alejandro Mazzoni & Jens Neumaier
Performed by Giulia y los Tellarini with Pablo Díaz-Reixa (as Pablo Diaz-Reixa),
Xavier Tort & Jordi Llobet
Courtesy of La Colaziones/Sones Art SCCL
Featured review
Overly Intellectualized, Forced Drama
6 February 2009. Vicky Christina Barcelona The title of the movie refers to the names of two young women, Vicky and Christina who visit Barcelona Spain and encounter an attractive, brash, seductive, and articulate Spanish man who raises doubts and well as insights in these women. Unfortunately the movie is severely hampered by a distracting, unnecessary voice over, opens earlier with a nice but repetitious musical rendition, and the overly incessant voice of Woody Allen who wrote and directed the movie. It is almost inescapable from experiencing the women artificially parroting Mr. Allen's unique way of thinking and talking which only adds to the awkwardness of the movie.
The voice-over is so basically repetitious explaining most of the particulars of what is going on in the movie that it interferes with the acting and expressive ability to allow the performers from telling the story. The movie experience is like having to sit through to separate and parallel portrayal of the same events. The voice-over only serves to either implicitly send out the message that the audience is either too dumb to understand what's going on or the actors are so bad that they can't perform sufficient to relay the story by themselves. A good example is the severe but perhaps unjustified criticism of the voice-over narrative (relatively scarce actually) in Blade Runner (1982) which in that movie provided additional mental thoughts of Harrison Ford that added substance to the movie instead of just supplanted or stated the obvious as in this movie.
And why the use of the flashback to reveal an additional relational subplot? To its credit, Vicky Christina Barcelona eventually evolves into a more in-depth and meaningful look at the consequences, complications of relationships often overlooked or skimmed over in other dramatic or romantic comedies. However, this relational "situational" marriage theme was also explored with the release the same year (2008) of "Revolutionary Road" with as much or more intensity or cinematic impact dealing with a 1950s period piece starring Leo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet who are provided with a script that allows them freedom to act the roles and lives they are portraying instead of Allen's intellectualizing musing of these deep relational uneasy themes.
The last part of the movie is cinematically different from the rest of the movie, more hurried, more explanatory, more quickly edited - sort like pushing out a work in progress. By the end, this rather long slice of life piece ends up dissatisfying unable to quench the thirst of an experiential series of events, and neither do the characters in the movie.
The voice-over is so basically repetitious explaining most of the particulars of what is going on in the movie that it interferes with the acting and expressive ability to allow the performers from telling the story. The movie experience is like having to sit through to separate and parallel portrayal of the same events. The voice-over only serves to either implicitly send out the message that the audience is either too dumb to understand what's going on or the actors are so bad that they can't perform sufficient to relay the story by themselves. A good example is the severe but perhaps unjustified criticism of the voice-over narrative (relatively scarce actually) in Blade Runner (1982) which in that movie provided additional mental thoughts of Harrison Ford that added substance to the movie instead of just supplanted or stated the obvious as in this movie.
And why the use of the flashback to reveal an additional relational subplot? To its credit, Vicky Christina Barcelona eventually evolves into a more in-depth and meaningful look at the consequences, complications of relationships often overlooked or skimmed over in other dramatic or romantic comedies. However, this relational "situational" marriage theme was also explored with the release the same year (2008) of "Revolutionary Road" with as much or more intensity or cinematic impact dealing with a 1950s period piece starring Leo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet who are provided with a script that allows them freedom to act the roles and lives they are portraying instead of Allen's intellectualizing musing of these deep relational uneasy themes.
The last part of the movie is cinematically different from the rest of the movie, more hurried, more explanatory, more quickly edited - sort like pushing out a work in progress. By the end, this rather long slice of life piece ends up dissatisfying unable to quench the thirst of an experiential series of events, and neither do the characters in the movie.
helpful•103
- tabuno
- Jan 20, 2019
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Summer Wedding
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $15,500,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $23,216,709
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $3,755,575
- Aug 17, 2008
- Gross worldwide
- $96,409,830
- Runtime1 hour 36 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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