Broken Embraces

Movie director Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar) is madly in love with Lena, the lead actress (Penelope Cruz) in his new movie Girls and Suitcases. Homar and Cruz star in Pedro Almodovar's new movie Broken Embraces, the story of their tragic romance and also the making of Blanco's final film. Unfortunately for Blanco, Lena is the mistress of Ernesto Martel, a powerful and wealthy financier (José Luis Gómez), whose old man's obsession for beautiful Lena outranks the filmmaker's.

Broken Embraces first introduces us to blinded screenwriter Harry Caine, the pseudonym Blanco takes after losing his eye sight in a car crash. Through a series of flashbacks narrated by Caine, the film takes us back fourteen years to the making of Girls and Suitcases and reveals his doomed relationship with lovely Lena. Caine tells his story to a young man named Diego (Tamar Novas), the son of Caine's devoted manager Judit (Blanca Portillo).

The film is not one of Almodovar's best. As a melodrama, the tragic story of Mateo Blanco and his doomed romance doesn't provoke tears. Despite great proclamations of passion, Broken Embraces fails to connect on an emotional level.

As a comedy, Broken Embraces is not particularly successful either. Almodovar pays homage to his now classic comedy Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). Girls and Suitcases is a clear remake of this earlier hilarious work and yet the new scenes starring Penelope Cruz are painfully flat.

And yet. A new Almodovar film starring the talented and gorgeous Cruz is bound to be a treat, and Broken Embraces is just that. Cruz has been doing some of her very best work for Almodovar, from a young pregnant nun in All About My Mother (1999) to her amazing performance as a determined single mother in Volver (2006). She's terrific, again, in this dual role: a bad actress and a woman in love caught in an impossible situation.

Broken Embraces is never dull. The film is gorgeous to look at. Cruz appears in various wigs and fetching costumes. Scenes are filmed on the beautiful Spanish island Lanzarote. In a complete mishmash of genres, Almodovar also weaves in a genuine element of thriller. Secrets are revealed, lies are exposed.

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos)

Starring: Penelope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, Jose Luis Gomez, Ruben Ochandiano
Directed by: Pedro Almodovar
Produced by: Esther Garcia, Agustin Almodovar
Running Time: 2 hrs. 8 min.
Release Date: November 20th, 2009 (limited)
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content, language and some drug material. Distributors: Sony Pictures Classics