The film is dominated by Penélope Cruz in the role of a model photographer and a currently expectant mother who is about to give birth. Her excellent teammate is the young Milena Smitová, who also plays her mother before giving birth at the beginning.
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Both are currently without a partner, neither of them has planned a pregnancy, but while Janis, in her forties, is looking forward to the baby, teenager Ana is afraid of everything, starting with childbirth and ending with future baby care and household care.
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From the meeting of the two in the maternity hospital, in which they share the same fate, when their newborn girls are placed “for observation” in a special ward, an engaging and excellently written plot emerges.
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Almodóvar loves strong women and mothers, and he admires them with all his work. He also built a melodramatic story on it, in which one of the heroines has to come to terms with the loss of a small baby and the other with the discovery that the biological mother of the beloved girl is someone else.
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Almodóvar, with certainty and bravura, switches to a different, more correct track, a story that seems predictable at times. He does it so convincingly that the viewer, although sometimes quite reluctant, has to agree with him and the actions of his heroes.
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The second line of the film goes deep into the past to the Spanish Civil War and the horrors that accompanied it. And while it may seem unbelievable, it is cleverly, with the author’s obviously personal interest, organically connected to the intimate plane. Parenting tests do not only determine current motherhood and fatherhood, but also deeply buried. And Almodóvar clearly shows his conviction that even the most secretive, perhaps even buried, ancient truth will one day come to light, because without it it would not be possible to live.
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In Parallel Mothers, there is no negative character, although it may look like that at times. Almodóvar also knows well that everyone has the right to a piece of his truth, and as it may seem almost absurd at times, he will find his way to others.
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Cruz is beautiful not only by all deceptive measures of beauty, but above all by pure femininity, who does not need to lose her charm just to look like a “woman of the people.” She can play it with all her stellar beauty, she is extremely natural in performance, there is no moment that the viewer would not believe. In addition, she has the great gift of transmitting all the emotions that her character experiences, whether it is the fear of losing a child, found and lost love, or the desire to know the past of her family and country.
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This time, Almodóvar is much more modest in color tuning than in his older films, but in moments of passion, his characteristic red flies through the image to give way to a more sober look.
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| Parallel mothers |
| Spain 2021, 120 min. Directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring: Penélope Cruzová, Milena Smitová, Rossy de Palma, Aitana Sánchez Gijónová and others |
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