Movie Type: Sophisticated Comedy, Comedy of Manners
Themes: Americans Abroad, Fish Out of Water, Romantic Betrayal
Main Cast: Taylor Nichols, Christopher Eigeman, Tushka Bergen, Mira Sorvino, Pepe Munne
Release Year: 1994
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
The second film from writer/director Whit Stillman, Barcelona is a smart, urbane comedy of manners set in Spain at the tail end of the Cold War. Taylor Nichols stars as Ted, an American salesman living in Barcelona. Out of the blue, he is visited by his acidic cousin Fred (Chris Eigeman), a U.S. Navy officer sent abroad to work damage control on rising anti-American sentiment. The textbook "Ugly American," Fred travels through the city in full military regalia, impervious to the constant taunts of "Fascist!" Like the similarly self-absorbed Ted, who has become involved with political activist Monsterrat (Tushka Bergen), Fred also finds romance, with a party girl played by Mira Sorvino. A brittle fish-out-of-water comedy, Barcelona is literate and sophisticated, a knowing essay on cultural identity and perception. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
Review
A superbly droll, mannered complement to his breakthrough first feature, Metropolitan, Whit Stillman's sophomore effort pushes the director's narrative scope and sense of style forward as it retains his pitch-perfect gift for neurotic, intellectual -- some may say endearingly uptight -- dialogue. Stillman regular Chris Eigeman was the standout among the cast of the first film, and the director has justly allowed him to all but walk away with this picture. Though the narrative bites off a little more than it can chew -- including anti-American terrorism, the mores of the waning sexual revolution, and heady business theory -- Stillman smartly chooses the relationship between Eigeman's arrogant Navy lieutenant Fred and his constipated cousin Ted (Taylor Nichols) as the film's center. To complain that Barcelona's political ideals are too conservative would be to discount Stillman as a satirist -- however sympathetic -- of young urban professionals of the '80s; a more valid complaint is that he does give short shrift to many of film's female characters. Still, Barcelona is a far more visually assured film than the director's debut, and that as well as his deft juggling of light and serious themes would be put to even better use in Stillman's next film, The Last Days of Disco. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Nuria Badia - Aurora; Hellena Schmied - Greta; Thomas Gibson - Dickie; Jack Gilpin - Consul; Debbon Ayer - Betty; Frank Creighton - Frank; J. Harden Rose - Audiotape Voice; Edmon Roch - Javier; Pere Ponce - Young Doctor
Credit
Edmon Roch - Associate Producer, Cecilia Kate Roque - Associate Producer, Billy Hopkins - Casting, Edi Giguere - Costume Designer, Whit Stillman - Director, Christopher Tellefsen - Editor, Mark Suozzo - Composer (Music Score), Licio Oliveira - Musical Direction/Supervision, John Thomas - Cinematographer, Whit Stillman - Producer, Victoria Borras - Producer, Rosa Romero - Producer, Reyes Abades - Special Effects, Whit Stillman - Screenwriter
The main character in Barcelona is a Chicago salesman named Ted Boynton, who lives and works in Barcelona in the 1980s. Ted's cousin Fred, a naval officer, unexpectedly comes to stay with him at the beginning of the film. Fred has been sent to Barcelona to handle public relations ahead of the arrival of the U.S. fleet.
The cousins have had a history of conflict since they were kids, which is referred to several times in the film. Ted and Fred develop relationships with various, single Barcelona women, and experience the negative reaction of some of Barcelona's residents to Fred's presence. Ted also faces possible problems with his American employer and the idea of attraction to physical beauty.
Notes
Fred says that the term "gringo" is pejorative. In Latin America, "gringo" is simply descriptive and not automatically pejorative.
