Broken Embraces

As Almodóvar settles into the midpoint of an already illustrious career, his work has achieved a happy balance between the whiz-kid pyrotechnics of his early days as a filmmaker and the more mature, measured style of his recent films. Broken Embraces sits somewhere between the two. In addition to a dense, labyrinthine narrative that jumps across time periods, it also features some fiercely contested, complex relationships. Furthermore, the master proves that he has lost none of his skill in managing the demands of a film that touches on his own métier.

At the centre of this affecting feature sits a blind screenwriter and former director who has abandoned his real name, Mateo Blanco, for a pseudonym, Harry Caine, the first sign of the double life he leads. Harry's current reality conceals a fascinating past, which Almodóvar spends much of his film detailing. The plot is propelled by the arrival of a brash young man, hot on the heels of news that the producer of Mateo's film “Girls and Suitcases” has died. The film marked a defining period in Mateo's life, as both he and his producer had fallen madly in love with a girl who was cast in the project. The simmering Lena had turned both of their worlds inside out. She became the love of Mateo's life while simultaneously leading a double life with the film's producer. But it is the young man on his doorstep that intrigues and troubles the now blind Harry. Who is he?

Almodóvar skilfully and effortlessly uncovers the secrets of everyone's various pasts in this steamy, scheming and oh-so-romantic melodrama. Penélope Cruz continues to broaden her palette as a dramatic and comedic actress, turning the coquettish Lena into a fully rounded and completely sympathetic schemer, while Lluís Homar, best known for his role in Bad Education, is both dignified and skittish in the double role of Harry/Mateo. Almodóvar's witty, well-written screenplay provides the intricate canvas on which this very Spanish dance of life and death is played out.

Piers Handling