Broken Embraces

Aroview: Typically juicy Almodovar number again features the gorgeous Penelope Cruz, here playing a mistress cast in the lead role of a movie her millionaire lover is financing, only to enjoy a scandalous affair with the film’s director.

Eye-popping colours, larger-than-life characters, and a skillfully woven plotline that oscillates freely between past and present delivers the rich, intoxicating tapestry we’ve come to expect of an Almodovar production. For those overexposed to the Spaniard’s cinema though, this latest entry will pose few surprises beyond the extra attention given to Cruz’s costume changes (as opposed to her cleavage, see VOLVER), and certainly not the self-referential treatment, which settles for another film-within-a-film narrative with self-conscious nods to the director’s own back catalogue, namely WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.

NZ International Film Festival 2009