Volver is a Triumph
Peopled with superbly drawn, attractive characters smoothly integrated into a well-turned, low-tricks plotline, "Volver" may rep Almodovar's most conventional piece to date, but it is also his most reflective, a subdued, sometimes intense and often comic homecoming that celebrates the pueblo and people that shaped his imagination.
Spanish crix have responded favorably to the helmer's most explicitly domestic item since the 1980's, and the pic is studded with enough standard Almodovar moments to keep his legion of offshore arthouse fans happy, though it is unlikely to break down any new doors.
The visually memorable scene over the opening credits shows dozens of women furiously scrubbing the graves of their deceased, establishing the influence of the dead over the living as the key theme.
One of the women is Raimunda (Penelope Cruz in her finest perf to date), a cleaner at Madrid airport; she has a daughter, Paula (Yohana Cobo), of whom her couch potato husband Paco (Antonio de la Torre) may or may not be the father.
Like her hairdresser sister Sole (Lola Duenas), Raimunda now lives in the capital, having left the La Mancha pueblo where they were brought up -- a typically Spanish town where women live long and men die young.
The sisters' mother, Irene (Carmen Maura) died in a fire a few years previously, along with their father; Irene's elderly, ailing sister Paula (Chus Lampreave) still lives in the pueblo, where she is looked after by Agustina (Blanca Portillo), whose own mother mysteriously disappeared on the day of the fire.
One evening, Raimunda finds younger sis wandering the streets in a daze, and discovers that the girl has stabbed Paco to death after he tried to abuse her. Raimunda agrees to take responsibility for the death and cleans up the mess.
At a subsequent wake for Aunt Paula, who has suddenly died, Agustina confides that the pueblo believes Irene's ghost has returned and was taking care of her sister during her final days.
Sure enough, one afternoon back in Aunt Paula's house, Sole watches as the wild-haired Irene descends the stairs and confronts her. Before too long, following some well-played farce, Irene is living with Sole and helping out with the hairdressing, pretending to be a Russian immigrant and hiding under the bed whenever anyone calls.
Pic harnesses styles and moods from different phases in the Almodovar oeuvre: the bleakly hilarious comic realism of "What Have I Done to Deserve This"; the bucolic melodrama of "The Flower of My Secret"; the celebration of womanhood that has been more or less a constant.
Many Almodovar stylistic hallmarks are present -- the stand-alone song, the refs to the mindless cruelty of reality TV and the homage to classic film (in this case to Visconti's "Bellissima"), the cameo by his producer bro. Such calling-card moments that are not always in the best service of the particular story he has to tell, but here they arise seamlessly from the action.Read full review
