A story about three generations of women. Raimunda (Cruz) works menial jobs to support her daughter (Yohana Cobo) and deadbeat husband three years after the death of her mother (Maura). Her sister Sole (Dueñas) is lonely, and her friend Agustina (Portillo) suffers from cancer and the disappearance of her own mother.
There isn’t a more memorable opening shot in a recent film than Almodóvar’s camera tracking across the cemetary in Volver. Gliding right to left as though winding into reverse – the film’s title is literally translated “to return” – the director introduces his female leads as they polish the family graves (and in one case their own), suggesting the emotional purgatory they find themselves in as they appear to summon the movie’s friendly ghost from beyond.
Yep, Almodóvar is seeing dead people in Volver – but don’t mistake this rich comic drama for spiritual hokum. Raimunda (Cruz) is suffering an abusive relationship about to turn homicidal when her daughter knifes her stepdad; meanwhile, in a neat riff on ghost folklore, her sister Sole (Dueñas) gets an otherworldy visit from their dead mother Irene (Maura, Almodóvar’s ’80s muse), a kind of comic gatekeeper who has returned to wash hair and sort out the family’s past.
The unspooling secrets and familial discoveries might be maudlin soap in lesser hands. Not so with Almodóvar: he’s a master at turning the lives of women into moving portraits, and here again steers the drama toward the affecting without sacrificing comedy. Almodóvar’s phantasms are emotionally anchored so the story never gets away from its characters – just when you suspect he might have overplayed his hand he stages a clever, surprising inversion to tie the film together.
Penélope Cruz is especially vibrant, though her Best Actress Oscar nomination probably has more to do with the Academy’s love for actresses willing to deglamourise themselves with fake appendages (the slender Cruz packed some junk in the trunk for added gravitas).
True, long time Almodóvar watchers may feel a sense of the familiar to the drama here, but Volver proves that old ground can still sometimes be fertile – and that the director’s touch hasn’t diminished.
Yep, Almodóvar is seeing dead people in Volver – but don’t mistake this rich comic drama for spiritual hokum. Raimunda (Cruz) is suffering an abusive relationship about to turn homicidal when her daughter knifes her stepdad; meanwhile, in a neat riff on ghost folklore, her sister Sole (Dueñas) gets an otherworldy visit from their dead mother Irene (Maura, Almodóvar’s ’80s muse), a kind of comic gatekeeper who has returned to wash hair and sort out the family’s past.
The unspooling secrets and familial discoveries might be maudlin soap in lesser hands. Not so with Almodóvar: he’s a master at turning the lives of women into moving portraits, and here again steers the drama toward the affecting without sacrificing comedy. Almodóvar’s phantasms are emotionally anchored so the story never gets away from its characters – just when you suspect he might have overplayed his hand he stages a clever, surprising inversion to tie the film together.
Penélope Cruz is especially vibrant, though her Best Actress Oscar nomination probably has more to do with the Academy’s love for actresses willing to deglamourise themselves with fake appendages (the slender Cruz packed some junk in the trunk for added gravitas).
True, long time Almodóvar watchers may feel a sense of the familiar to the drama here, but Volver proves that old ground can still sometimes be fertile – and that the director’s touch hasn’t diminished.
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