Broken Embraces (DVD)

note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room Pedro Almodovar is arguably the greatest director that Spanish cinema has ever seen; his most famous dramas such as Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Talk to Her and Volver have been huge critical hits, and established him as an enduring auteur with an eye for the reality of society and personal relationships. He's also famous for his numerous pairings with Penelope Cruz, who he again teams with here. Although Almodovar has again been snubbed by Spain with regard to selecting their Oscar nominee, don't let that allay your viewing of this film; it is another clever, albeit confusingly ...  Read the complete review

Revelling and rolling in its adoration of rich colour schemes, melodramatic plotting and Penelope Cruz, Broken Embraces is very much a classic Pedro Almodóvar film. A nourish thriller that is at once a tangled, dark love story in the vein of 2002's Hable con Ella and a paean to the movie industry, the director's latest creation plays out like a tribute to everything that has gone before it. As much as there are shadows of Almodóvar's earlier films here, though, Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos) is also a fine film in its own right. We begin the story in modern-day Madrid, where a blind filmmaker, Harry Caine, receives word that a millionaire named Ernesto ...  Read the complete review

Pedro Almodovar (Volver) brings us another drama/thriller with comedic undertones that borders on the soap opera, with his latest movie Broken Embraces (or in Spanish, Los Abrazos Rotos). Here we have two stories that intertwine. Mateo Blanco was a movie director who was blinded in a tragic accident 14 years before this film begins. Ever since, he has called himself Harry Caine (which, by the way, is a pseudonym that Almodovar used for himself on his other film this year The Cannibalistic Councillor), and now writes movie scripts. Then there's Lena (Penelope Cruz), the secretary to Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gomez), who became his mistress, but really wanted ...  Read the complete review