Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona tells its entire story in the title, which I'm sure Allen intended. It is about Vicky (Hall) and Cristina (Johansson) during a summer vacation in Barcelona, where they meet Juan Antonio (Bardem) who invites them to drink wine and make love to him. As a young narrator informs us, the two girls have differing views on love. Vicky is engaged to Doug (Messina) but is afraid she wants more than her boring but otherwise perfect marriage. Cristina is always looking for more and different ways to be pleased until she finds what she's looking for. Juan Antonio is frank and honest with his emotions and sexuality. While these all sound like unique characters, they're not; they're caricatures exaggerated to make fun of each social class (educated homemaker wishing for something more, ever-unsatisfied free spirit, and romantic bohemian artist). Even the side characters are laughable.
This is not to denigrate the acting, which was excellently understated, but rather to emphasize the humor. I was laughing throughout the entire piece, not because of the things that happened, but because of the characters' impressions of themselves--how they talked and what they said--that revealed Allen poking fun at each of these social circles. Technically, the movie was solid, with little risk and littler reward. (There was an odd cross dissolve during a shot/countershot conversation, but nothing else particularly awful comes to mind.) I actually didn't mind the narration that much (and thankfully they didn't try to explain it at the end like in Million Dollar Baby). The movie is a fairly light romp through what is clearly a male fantasy with nothing profoundly insightful, but it's well worth the ride.IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497465/