WOODY ALLEN'S 39th film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", was described as a return to form after three not very good years. In this romantic comedy, set in Barcelona, tragedy hovers delicately, as it did in the film's cinematic precursor, François Truffaut's "Jules et Jim" made more than 40 years ago.

Like his mentor, Mr Allen starts off with a Mutt and Jeff friendship, this one between two young women: lanky brunette Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and her blonde best friend, Cristina (Scarlett Johansson). Truffaut's similarly mismatched friends succumbed to a female whirlwind played by Jeanne Moreau; Vicky and Cristina, on holiday in Barcelona, meet Juan Antonio, a sexy painter played by the very male Javier Bardem, who is attracted to both of them.

At this point something curious happens. According to Mr Allen, Penélope Cruz called when she heard he was making a film in Barcelona and asked him for a role. He wrote her a smasher: Maria Elena, Juan Antonio's exwife, who is said to have planted a knife in him during an argument. Her bloody reputation preceding her, Maria Elena turns up fresh from a suicide bid halfway through the film and inserts herself into the ménage. Cristina, a quester after romance, thinks Maria Elena could be just what she has been looking for. Meanwhile level-headed Vicky is having doubts about her engagement to Doug the lawyer (Chris Messina).

Mr Allen has learnt from Truffaut about the joys of loose-knit narratives, and he improves on his model by mercifully bringing his film in at the right length. But it must have been the gods who sent him Ms Cruz's Maria Elena, a sloe-eyed, chain-smoking Iberian hurricane who dismisses Juan Antonio's gentle reminder about her murder attempt with a contemptuous shrug before plunging into an old argument
about which of them is the real genius.