Is romance destined to be unfulfilled love? When it comes to love, are our choices only between settling for the practical relationship or stumbling upon being found by the romantic?

In his latest movie Vicky Christina Barcelona, Woody Allen explores this question in the beautiful city of Barcelona. Vicky and Christina (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson) are best friends and they are visiting Spain for the summer. Both approach life and love in two completely different ways. Vicky takes the stable route. She has a successful fiance and is very responsible. Christina on the other hand knows what she doesn’t want out of life and lives out of that grasping for what’s missing. In Spain, they meet a Spanish artist (Javier Bardem) that sweeps them off their feet and their bearings… BOTH of them! The story is basically Vicky wrestling with ditching her “stable” life for a foreign fling and Christina dives fully into the experience in hopes that this was just what her life was missing.

What I really liked about this film was the way that Allen sketches his characters using Soren Kierkegaard’s concept of the aesthetic and the ethical. Both Vicky and Christina represent different stages and both enter in to each other’s stage at one point in the film, only to return to their starting place at the end of the film. What Allen doesn’t actually get into the film is Kierkegaard’s Religious stage. Putting aside the philosophy in the film, I did enjoy Allen’s dialogue and cinematography.

After seeing this film, we all went out to eat afterwards and one topic that came up in light of this film was the possibility of marriage (another Kierkegaardian theme, btw). Our discussion was not, does marriage happen, but rather does love last? What Woody Allen does extremely well is bring real life insecurities and emotions to the big screen and lets the audience identify and wrestle with them. Part of our group was of the persuasion that love doesn’t last, and it’s best to live for the practical. Another part of our group felt that love was something that could surprise us and was worth committing to and not take it for granted.

You may not have to see this film to contribute to this discussion, but I do want to know what you think: Is love destined to be unfulfilled?