Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I haven't been to see a Woody Allen film at the cinema for literally years. The accumulation of tiresome, cliched female characters, their annoying male counterparts and increasingly tin-eared dialogue finally made me avoid any future films. OK, I finally cracked. Critics proclaiming Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a return to form weren't quite enough (I've heard *that* one before) but the presence of the mighty Javier Bardem swung it - the logic being that no film featuring him could be completely unwatchable. So it proved. Whenever he and Penelope Cruz were onscreen together, the film was very good indeed. He berates her for not speaking English in front of Cristina, while hypocritically doing exactly that during their altercations. By turns exasperated and affectionate with each other, they bring a sense of a shared past and feel like more rounded characters than the Americans whose lives they disrupt. You know immediately that, despite Vicky's disdain and reluctance to accompany Juan Antonio and Cristina to Oviedo, she will succumb and thus have her nicely ordered life thrown into turmoil, while equally lacking the courage to do anything about it. There's also an oh-so-arch, oh-so-irritating voiceover determined to spell out what's happening, just in case you weren't paying attention. So, better than Woody's recent efforts (not difficult to be honest) but not exactly "great".