Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 19, 1994 TAG: 9411230032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As in his first film, the acclaimed "Metropolitan" about a group of upper-crust, upper-cursed collegiates doing the debutante party circuit in New York, Stillman's characters in "Barcelona" are anything but quintessentially American. As in Metropolitan, their privileged social standing puts them on the outside of the mass culture and experience and makes them very, very funny and sometimes touching in situations where common sense - call it "a clue" - would come in handy.
More complex and ambitious than "Metropolitan," Stillman's new movie is as engaging - and maybe even funnier - than his first, although it seems slightly less confident when it takes a turn for the serious in its latter half.
This is the story of Ted (Taylor Nichols) and Fred (Chris Eigeman), a salesman and his Naval officer cousin forced into cohabitation in Barcelona in the early '80s, which the movie ponderously introduces in subtitle as "the last decade of the Cold War." They are "forced" into cohabitation because Ted is actually too nice a guy to tell Fred to go find his own place while he awaits the arrival of the Sixth Fleet.
They set out on the nightlife scene, where Fred quickly learns that a man in the uniform of the U.S. Navy is very much a target for verbal - and ultimately, physical - abuse. In one of the film's best scenes, Fred attempts, with a terribly inadequate felt-tip pen, to scratch out an anti-American slogan painted on a wall.
Ted, a kind of Gentile Woody Allen protagonist, tries to put up with Fred's genuine-seeming patriotic outbursts; Fred tries to help Ted learn to relax and appreciate the beauty and "progressive" sexual mores of Barcelona's female population. But everywhere they go, they run into anti-Americanism.
"Aren't Americans more violent than other people?" a woman asks Fred. "You know, all the shootings ... "
"Oh, the shootings," Fred replies, barely missing a beat. "No, we're just better shots."
And what about the NFL-CIA's role in post-World War II Europe's unionization? Ted tries to clear up the confusion; later, Fred whispers in Ted's ear, "There's no NFL-CIA. Is there?"
Stillman's Americans are odd spokesmen for Uncle Sam: They really just want to fall in love. Or do the limbo. In "Barcelona," they must make some kind of uneasy peace with themselves and the rest of the world before they can get the girl - and get home, where guys like them are only slightly less foreign.
Barcelona ***
A Castle Rock/Fine Line release playing at The Grandin Theatre. Rated PG-13 for adult situations. 101 mins.
by CNB