Monday, December 11, 2006

Volver - Movie Review

This is going to be short for now ( I may extend this at a later time). Pedro Almodovar movies. Next to Ang Lee, Pedro has had the most movies at the top of my movies list. Though while Volver is not his best work, it is still something to be seen.

It's a luscious tribute to working women, following Raimunda (Penelope Cruz in an Oscar worthy performance) and her family in Madrid after her husband is killed by her daughter, and her sister sees the ghost of her mother. To explain more would be to ruin it. Or confuse you.

The combined female cast won Best Actress at Cannes this year and as normal, Almodovar's movies are vibrant in colour and soap opera antics. As with his recent films, Volver has a maturity that help make a more realistic emotional connection to the stories.


While Volver (meaning "to return") finally doesn't quite build enough steam before it's conclusion is quickly spilled out (which I had kind of guessed early on anyways), there's a joy in watching Penelope Cruz ACT again as the camera essentially makes love to her.

8.5/10 or B+

2 comments:

Reel Fanatic said...

I think your assessment is just about dead right ... not his best work, but still miles better than most of what else is on screens now .. for me, it started out really awkwardly, but the ending, with just Cruz and Maura on the bench, was tremendous

Vance said...

Yeah, I hate to put anything negatively towards Pedro since its still infinitely better than most of the crap out there and totally worth viewing, but yeah, coming after All About My Mother and Talk to Her, it's not quite as good, but still enjoyable and moving (in parts). Still, I figure this is a movie harder to sell than say, Happy Feet, so I want people to check this movie out.