Ever since the international success of 1988’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” Pedro Almodovar has been at the top of his class amongst European filmmakers. He even copped an Oscar, for best screenplay, for his 2002 film “Talk to Her.”
The Spanish director has a new one, “Volver,” and it’s one of his best. Here he weaves one of his most emotionally satisfying stories with an unabashedly old-fashioned movie-star vehicle.
That movie star is Penelope Cruz – yes, the Spanish beauty whose U.S. career seems to have succeeded more as a sometime girlfriend to Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey than as an actress in Hollywood movies.
All of that is absolved with “Volver.” Almodovar has always been good at glorifying actresses, and Cruz blossoms under his guidance.
The interlocked story has Cruz as an indomitable woman named Raimunda whose life of laboring to support her teenage daughter (Yohana Cobo) and shiftless husband is about to change. For one thing, the hubby ends up on the floor of her kitchen, dead from a knife wound.
Almodovar, who’s a huge fan of heavy-breathing melodramas and soap operas, seems to be re-working the plot of the classic Joan Crawford movie, “Mildred Pierce.” But he quickly moves into his own territory, as Raimunda’s sister Sole (Lola Duenas) is startled to discover their dead mother (Carmen Maura) walking around. Are we watching a ghost story now?
Meanwhile, Raimunda takes over an empty restaurant, whose owner has left town. She doesn’t own the place or anything, she just happens to have the keys. This move solves two problems: She can make a little money selling food, and she can store her husband’s body in the freezer.
This film has been described as something of a return to Almodovar’s earlier, funnier films, but I don’t agree. “Volver” has many amusing moments, but it is fundamentally thoughtful, warm, and even melancholy. The director’s customary feeling for women and the way they soldier on through the world is as keen as ever.
Helping him are actresses he’s worked with before, notably Carmen Maura, the star of his earliest movies, and Penelope Cruz, who seems wiser and more womanly here than she’s ever been. Maybe every actress who wants to get her career back on track should work with Pedro Almodovar.
Penelope Cruz shines in “Volver.”
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