She Likes to Watch

Two women find love and lust in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”

Welcome to the sexy world of Woody Allen.

You read that last sentence right. Woody Allen, the director of “Bananas” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” wants to woo you. Sex you up. Smoove you, as it were.

His latest campaign is “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” an affectionate portrait of two beautiful women spending the summer abroad in Spain’s most gorgeous city.

As an unnecessary narrator explains, our stars are close friends with very different personalities and agendas.

Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is a free-spirited artsy type in search of romance and adventure. (She’s also looking for artistic inspiration, the narrator informs us, having just finished a 12-minute film that she hates.) No-nonsense Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is there to study Catalan culture. The closest we get to an Allen surrogate, she hides her insecurities with 10-dollar words and a white-knuckled grasp on reality.

So the two women sightsee. They snap photos. They sip wine and hold long, heartfelt conversations about art and love.

Then one balmy summer night, they catch the eye of Juan Antonio — a painter (Javier Bardem) who sets out to seduce each of the women in turn.

Much of the movie’s heat comes from Bardem, who succeeds in proving why he was a Spanish heartthrob long before playing a scary serial killer in “No Country for Old Men.”(That tint of creepiness lingers, however. Every time Bardem moves in for a seductive whisper, you almost expect him to growl “Call it, friendo.”)

The film’s female stars are equally winsome, with Scarlett recalling her wistful turn in “Lost in Translation.” Ms. Hall, a tall brunette most recognizable as Christian Bale’s “other woman” from “The Prestige,” has to struggle not to upstage her.

Yet for all its promise, “Vicky Cristina” lacks passion. All sex scenes are shot from the neck up and the much vaunted encounter between Johansson and Penélope Cruz — playing Juan Antonio’s troubled ex-wife — is brief and rather bland.

Allen saves his energy for Spain itself, depicting every quiet courtyard, country road and Gaudí fantasy in lovingly sunwashed shades. It’s easy to see why he finds the region — and Barcelona in particular — so attractive. After 20 minutes or so, I too was dialing my travel agent.

If only Woody Allen had paid as much attention to his characters as to the luscious backdrop. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” might have been a far more successful seduction.

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Photo courtesy of MovieWeb.com.