Volver

Undoubtedly in Pedro Almodóvar's drama world, he is the king of melodrama. It's almost impossible not to get wrapped up in his bizarre plots involving a wide variety of feelings and issues from maternal love, parental hatred, female solidarity, relentless criticism to “machismo”, to the desire to kill and be forgiven, tales about childhood and hometown, family dramas, aging, sickness, life, death and superstitions. 

Although in his last films, the Spanish director seems more sober and decanted, simpler in style, somehow more refined, still he has never abandoned his particular style, his passion for contrasts and exaggerations. The town's old maid who smokes weed and is the daughter of a hippie, a sweet murderer mother, a rapist father, a strong willed woman always on the verge of tears. High and low, laughter and pain, the vulgar and the sublime, the pathetic and the tragic, the excessive and the sober, simply Spanish culture, pure Baroque, nothing new. 

Definitely Almodóvar is a sublime Spaniard who takes both the best of the most vibrant colorful painters and the cheapest cheesy arguments of any operettas. And who is more representative of the Spanish beauty than Penelope Cruz in “Volver”? lThe peak of her performance is when she sings a tango in a “Flamenco” way: even stones would be moved by this performance. 

If what you are looking for after leaving the theater is to have all your feelings shook in a sweet, indefinable nostalgia, you should not miss this one. And if you can, then take a glass of the finest vintage wine from “Duero”.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Writer: Pedro Almodóvar

Stars: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas