Parallel Mothers
That's a pretty snazzy poster. Maybe it should come
with a warning.
(Madres Paralelas)
dir: Pedro Almodovar
2021
It’s lovely to see Penelope Cruz starring in another Pedro Almodovar movie.
As in, that in and of itself is a good thing. She’s been the lead in many of his films, and it usually bodes well. I still have such fond memories of watching Volver for the first time, and enjoying it so much, and thinking “wow, Almodovar really loves women, plus he’s sorta kinda making up for how terrible thematically and content-wise some of his earlier films were.”
I’m not going to get into it. If you saw the ‘delightful’ 80s-90s Almodovar flicks, you know exactly what I mean.
The themes here are still about what generations of women go through, what mothers go through, what pieces of shit men are in general, but it’s welded to two plots – one’s a melodrama about babies being accidentally swapped, and the other is about the people the Franco fascists butchered at the start of and during the Spanish Civil War. And probably after as well, considering the fact that the fascists won that particular war.
If it appears like what I describe above sounds ungainly or like some kind of ungodly hodge-podge, well, it is, a bit. It’s perfectly well acted, I have seen Penelope Cruz give less than great performances, but not in Almodovar’s films. And she’s fine here, comfortable with the character, comfortable in her skin. I just feel like the screenplay was somewhat half-baked. There are things that happen, stuff that people do, and it doesn’t feel organic to the plot, or to these people, or to people in general, whether they’re Spaniards or not.
The film opens with a photographer called Janis (Cruz) doing what photographers do, with the subject being an anthropologist called Arturo (Israel Elejalde). I can’t imagine why a highly sought after and in demand photographer would be photographing an anthropologist, but then my knowledge of Spanish culture and society is somewhat limited. Maybe anthropologists are the true rock stars of Spanish society.
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