Parallel Mothers
Parallel Mothers is full of plot twists and revelations that build up at a dazzling rate, with a serious look at motherhood and family life. Janis is a photographer who meets forensic anthropologist Arturo (Israel Elejalde). Janis asks for his help in exhuming a mass grave where her grandfather’s body was buried after he was executed in the early days of the Spanish Civil War.
But then Parallel Mothers becomes something else: a soap opera-infused romp. As the new mothers start to bond their lives begin to criss-cross in increasingly extreme and complicated ways. An excellent Hitchcockian score with beautiful filmmaking lifts the film to new heights. But the jewel in the crown is the Almodóvar-Cruz collaboration. Cruz grounds the potentially ridiculous scenarios with empathy and feeling so that whatever direction the movie goes in, you’re with her all the way. Playing a woman keeping a secret she is bursting to let out, is captivating. As it enters the final act, Almodóvar, takes us back to the Spanish Civil War, and the unmarked graves of lost family members.
Almodóvar produces cinematic perfection in so much that everything is considered, nothing is left to chance. He uses comedy & drama for terrific entertaining ends, and in this piece, he is aided by a fabulous performance from Penélope Cruz. It doesn’t get any better than this. Highly recommended.
The film opened on the 28th January and is available pretty much everywhere.
