Penélope Cruz’s performance is one of those that saves a rather boring and lifeless movie with an enormous amount of energy and scene-stealing. It takes a great deal of time before Penélope Cruz enters the movie for the first time and her screen-time is surprisingly limited – but she still the saving grace of the story, creating an unpredictable and wild character who is undoubtedly the highpoint of this movie. Before Maria Elena enters the story of Vicky Christina Barcelona, her character has been mentioned quite a few times already and evoked all kind of expectations – Maria Elena is supposed to be wild and a little bit dangerous, even violent and all other kinds of characteristics that in a movie like this would be called ‘passionate’. And Penélope Cruz manages to match all these expectations – but her Maria Elena is also more. There is something magnetic about her, she’s the kind of woman people would love to be around.
Penélope Cruz’s Maria Elena is not only temperamental and unpredictable – she is also honest and likeable.
Maria Elena is not a very well written character – she’s there to point out the obvious, to make the other characters re-think their own actions and thoughts but she is never really given the chance to become her own person. So Penélope Cruz deserves some extra points for making her such a force of nature on the screen and brining the whole movie to another level whenever she appears.
It’s a very realistic performance of a certain type of woman that Penélope Cruz brings to live beautifully.
7 comments:
I totally agree. I think she deserved to win though Tomei is some competition for her plus Adams and Davis were excellent as well. Only Henson was nothing.
Loved her the line reading "geee-nee-us",i just love the garden scene.
I was not to impressed by her here.
I'm glad Penelope Cruz has an Oscar, but I don't think it should've been for this. At all. Rebecca Hall is my choice for Best Actress this year – it's a pity she didn't get more recognition – and Marisa Tomei certainly should've won BSA!
Love her as an actress,love her in this movie.I was so happy when she deservedly won for this,and am sure this performance will age fantastically.
At first I really hated her for taking away Amy Adam's Oscar but now I think she was good and I still don't think she deserved it but she's not as undeserving as I thought when I first saw her performance a week after she won.
At first, I liked her more, but after rewatching the film about two months ago, I found her work to not be enough to save this film- It's too dull and unexciting and Cruz's role is so small and her performance/character is so too little too late to really spice up the film and bring it to another level the way you would want her too. Tomei or Rosemarie Dewitt or even Debra Winger should have won.
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