Far, far from Talk to her or Volver, by far his two greatest works, Parallel mothers reflects the increasingly marked decline of the director.
Far too from his last great work The skin I live in, even from the much less interesting Julieta and Pain and Glory.
Even so, Parallel mothers is a correct Almodovar film. Too slow, with a too predictable development and which loses interest in the middle part of the film (so many tests, so many tears), but almost always interesting.
Penelope is brilliant (well, very strange accent, as always when she works for Almodovar), but the plot is too tearful and we miss the crazy sense of humor with which Almodovar spiced up his melodramas in his best films. Here the style is, comparatively, not only more serious: it's monotonous, and tired...just plastic, not flesh and bones.
Almodovar has lost exuberance. He clearly wanted to gain in focus and depth: it is an assumedly mature cinema... but Almodovar has never been an intellectual or analytical director, his greatest weapons were directness, passion, humour and authenticity and we loved his films despite their obviousness. They were over the top films, visually pure plastic, more convoluted than complex, but pasionate and with an inner conviction. And yes, they were fun. Now we just feel the smell of plastic, the routine.
Far too from his last great work The skin I live in, even from the much less interesting Julieta and Pain and Glory.
Even so, Parallel mothers is a correct Almodovar film. Too slow, with a too predictable development and which loses interest in the middle part of the film (so many tests, so many tears), but almost always interesting.
Penelope is brilliant (well, very strange accent, as always when she works for Almodovar), but the plot is too tearful and we miss the crazy sense of humor with which Almodovar spiced up his melodramas in his best films. Here the style is, comparatively, not only more serious: it's monotonous, and tired...just plastic, not flesh and bones.
Almodovar has lost exuberance. He clearly wanted to gain in focus and depth: it is an assumedly mature cinema... but Almodovar has never been an intellectual or analytical director, his greatest weapons were directness, passion, humour and authenticity and we loved his films despite their obviousness. They were over the top films, visually pure plastic, more convoluted than complex, but pasionate and with an inner conviction. And yes, they were fun. Now we just feel the smell of plastic, the routine.