Pedro Almodovar

• Title: Parallel Mothers
• IMDb: link

For a film that centers around a plot point that would be right at home in any soap opera, Parallel Mothers provides a surprisingly strong drama. Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit are strangers who meet in the hospital, both giving birth to their first child. Each will take home a boy, but what they won’t realize for quite some time is that each mother was given the other’s son.

It’s Janis (Cruz) who begins to suspect the truth when the father (Israel Elejalde), a flirtatious archeologist with a wife and no real interest in a more permanent relationship with the photographer, sees no resemblance in the child to anyone in his family. A chance meeting with Ana (Smit) brings the characters back into each others orbit as Janis’ suspicions are realized and a gnawing guilt over the truth begins to color all that will follow.

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• Title: Broken Embraces
• IMDB: link

As far as I can tell, Pedro Almodóvar is the most well-known Spanish filmmaker, and has a shot at being the most well-known European one, too. It’s been a lonely three years since his last film, Volver crossed the Atlantic, but now we get Broken Embraces, another story of the consequences and rewards of love. Was it worth the wait? Of course it was.

The story is a complicated entanglement of a filmmaker, Harry Caine, as he recalls his affair with his lead actress Lena (my wife, Penélope Cruz). Though they’re madly in love, they’re kept from happiness by Lena’s boyfriend, the millionaire and producer of Harry’s film, Ernesto. Afraid he’ll ruin the film, they don’t keep the relationship from Ernesto, but not without severe difficulties and consequences.

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