Broken Embraces

Penélope Cruz and Lluís Homar in Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces.

Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar; Starring: Penélope Cruz and Lluís Homar

Nov 23, 2009 By Rachel Venuti

Penélope Cruz shines in Pedro Almodóvar's new candy-colored, neo-noir Broken Embraces. Her performance is made possible by the kind of trust built via years of collaboration. Only a director such as Almodóvar could elicit from a beautiful actress the survival instinct, natural allure, independent streak, and the ability to succumb to true love necessary for this role. Since Live Flesh, Almodóvar and Cruz have become an unstoppable duo, and Cruz, more than any other of Almodóvar's regular actors (Ángela Molina, Lola Dueñas), has the versatility to express the incredibly complex sentiments of her director's vision. Be on the lookout for the scene in which she tries on wigs--it's a true love letter to Cruz and her ebullient beauty.

This time around, Cruz plays Lena Rivero, a call girl turned secretary turned mistress turned actress turned lover. Blind writer Harry Caine (Lluís Homar) has forsaken his previous life as a filmmaker, but we are privy to back story of his final film, a kind of doubly meta makings-of for a film within the film. Broken Embraces is a tribute to movie making in and of itself, but it also excels in its explorations of obsession, parenthood, friendship, guilt, and trust.

It's clever, it's stylish, but, most of all, it's a beautiful peek into what unfolds when your loved ones finally unburden themselves.

www.sonyclassics.com/brokenembraces

Author rating: 7/10

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Average reader rating: 7/10