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This movie has its wonderful setting in Barcelona and various parts of Spain with some scenes also filmed in New York. The movie starts off with two friends from New York taking a long visit to Spain and then meeting up with by chance a charming artist who gives them an immediate offer to fly to a remote island at the swank dinner locale. Vicky played by Rebecca Hall, and Cristina is played by Scarlett Johansson react to the proposal differently and reveal the beginnings of a contrasting decision making style. Vicky seems sharp and poised, well aware of the charmer and his possibly wandering approach. Christina is more open towards proceeding and then finding out as she goes along what she thinks and feels about the forming situations as he is despite his errant approach very appealing to her. Vicky maintains resistance but soon the scene flips and they are on a small plane to this remote and exotic island of the mysterious artist Javier Barden played by Juan Antonio Gonzalo. In the meantime Vicky has a solid boyfriend back home Doug who seems like a quality nice guy who fits the success model. Javier continues his try for double play on the girls and this becomes one of the questions that emerge in this movie. Why does he feel the need to approach the girls as two and of course this has comic aspects to it in that maybe the girls being on vacation are willing to deal with things being a little off beat. Christina seems game and Vicky still takes him for a wise guy charmer, but then events suddenly change when Christina gets food poisoning and has to spent the day recuperating. That then leaves the day for Vicky and Javier to get to know each other traveling throughout the island in idyllic senenery. And here the movie begins a pensive phase and as Javier shows some of his artwork, the beauty of the land, his home roots and brings her to a romantic setting with Segovia like music in the evening, she feels in the throes of a real romantic which becomes mesmerizing to her. It comes across to her in measurable beats like a cool breeze from the seaways. She has maybe seen somebody like this, but she has never been seen like this, thru the true artists eyes and the true romantic eyes somehow now directed to her and this may have been part of her enlarged skepticism about men that this could be real at any point. As the movie progresses forward and away from this day and moment, the experience leaves a deep hold on the heart of Vicky, even as the later events drift away from that moment, she can’t shake what it was and represented to her. In a way you can feel for her, as it begins to look like it is something she will never have with Doug on the long term horizon. The flashbacks in her mind to the scenes with him that day have an element of sadness, in that it seems almost like her first and last chance for heartfelt romance. Cristina makes the grab for Javier and it starts out well even enough but soon were are introduced to his former wife, Maria Ela, played by Penolope Cruz who gives a performance that would earn her an Oscar Maria, comes across as the beautiful fiery type and seems to have troubles containing her emotions. She hangs around as Javier tries to help get her back on her feet and new conflicts ensue. It is fascinating how Javier does appeal to all three women, yet Maria Ela seems to hot to handle for any one guy and so develops another twist. While it is interesting that they initially fly into this island, and the metaphor is that you have to fly in for something to happen, the question then becomes whether the easier one to convince to fly in, Cristina, may also be more willing to easily fly out or fly away. Maria Ela displays what may be a almost untamable spirit. Then one of the questions to ask, is again why does Javier seem to approach the women as too, as he doesn’t seem under confident, yet a plausible explanation might have been his experiences with Maria Ela in the past where she was so fiery that he felt he needed someone else to diffuse this a bit and projected this into what it would be like in his dealings with new people. This movie is pitch perfect for what it is trying to do, and offers some awesome baroque scenery in Barcelona. A question that can be debated is which character the viewer finds most appealing and why, is it the passionate character of Maria, the adventurous Christina, or the pensive and thoughtful Vicky or is it any of the different character presentations given by Javier? It doesn’t really judge or make any firm conclusions on any of the characters but seems to try to reveal potentials within them and how and in what directions these potentials could be more fully realized is left to conjecture by the audience.
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