MOVIE REVIEW: BROKEN EMBRACES

The latest film from Pedro Almodovar puts us in Cruz control.

Love, sex, drama, intrigue—on the surface, Broken Embraces has all of the components of a classic Pedro Almodovar film.

But that doesn’t make the 17th full-length movie by the seminal Spanish director a classic.

Broken Embraces explores the world of Harry Caine, a blind writer plagued by the demons of his life pre-visual impairment. It’s a world that includes a recently-deceased millionaire, his mysterious son, a doting personal assistant, her DJ son, and a beautiful secretary-turned-mistress-turned-actress-turned-lover (played by Almodovar's latest muse, Penelope Cruz).

It’s not the director's first film to feature a hard-to-summarize plot, but it’s also not the best. Though we do finally figure out what connects this cast of individuals together, by the end, it hardly seems to matter—they may have dealt with heartbreak and death, but it’s difficult to feel anything for characters you don’t care about.

Which isn’t to say that his fans won’t have fun playing Almodovar Bingo during Broken Embraces; from cameos by some of his favorites (see if you can spot Rossy de Palma, Carmen Machi, and Chus Lampreave) to a film-within-a-film based off of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the movie tips its hat at the director’s illustrious career.

One which doesn’t necessarily reach new heights with his latest project, but then, as Almodovar reminds us throughout Broken Embraces, with an arsenal already packed with classics, you can’t always outdo yourself.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS



This story was published on November 19, 2009.