LFF review: The Brothers Bloom/Vicky Cristina Barcelona

The Brothers Bloom and Vicky Cristina Barcelona are a pair of character-driven, four-hander comedies, achieving quite different levels of success. In the first, Brick writer/director Rian Johnson spins the ripping yarn of the two best con-men in history – the titular brothers, Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody – and their last mark Penelope, played by Rachel Weisz.

Johnson’s intention was to give equal priority to the characters as to the con itself, contrary to most con movies – and while he does that, the con itself loses focus and arguably goes on too long.

The art direction and production design lend the film a timeless feel, while the cast varies in performance and sympathy/empathy: Ruffalo is good as the older brother/bully but there’s still something slightly vacant or absent in his screen persona; Brody is appropriately moody, but brings some warmth to the loneliness and bitterness of the younger brother; Weisz almost steals every scene she’s in, playing the eccentric, kooky Penelope; and Rinko Kikuchi (Oscar-nominated for Babel) plays wonderfully dumb for most of the movie.

The essence of the con movie is that it even as it reveals the working of its tricks it must con the audience as much as target in the narrative: and The Brothers Bloom does leave you guessing until the very end.
Score: 7

Woody Allen’s VCB is not the ever-trumpeted return to form. It’s neither that funny, nor insightful and squanders a fantastic cast: Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and Patricia Clarkson.

And just as Match Point presented a post card picture London, so VCB gives us the titular city as all tourists see it, not as the inhabitants live it.

For what it’s worth, the film tells the story of Vicky (Hall) and Cristina (Johansson), two friends, with polar-opposite views of love, on holiday in Barcelona, where they meet Bardem’s free spirit artist and eventually his crazed ex-wife Cruz. Vicky’s and Cristina’s views of love and themselves are changed through their relationship with Bardem and Cruz (both stereotypically Spanish…).

The more I think about it, the more offended I am by how inoffensive, unchallenging and uninspired this film is. Woody: do better – or don’t do at all!
Score: 3.5