Reviewed by Andre Dellamorte

These Sisters Are Doing it For themselves. Sisters. Doing it. For. Themselves.

Of late, Pedro Almodovar seems to have two modes, which tend to revolve around sex mysteries (Bad Education, Live Flesh) or his Woman's pictures (All About My Mother, Volver). Therte's something to that, having two modes that I think can work well for a director. I think that it's dangerous to keep telling the same story over and over, unless your Howard Hawks and try and do so in as many different genres as you can. When people look at the failings of someone like a Kevin Smith or (what may be said of ) Wes Anderson, it's how myopic their visions are. And though most artists have central themes and passions they return to, it's best not to dip in the same well too often, and so Almodovar is smart for feeling his way around. But he's always been a chameleon in his own way.

Though after twenty years of his cinema, it's strange how this Spanish homosexual filmmaker has been canonized, and long before he got "respectable." Granted, that has everything to do with being a master class filmmaker, who incorporates some Sirk, a hint of Minnelli, a few tablespoons of Fassbinder, a dash of Cukor, and of course his own god damned genius. But even by 1989's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, he was canonical, and his casts has routine been raided for American productions (Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz, Victoria Abril Javier Bardem, and Francesca Neri all got bumps or careers from the Pedro time). I think he got lost a little, maybe over-indulged (Kika strained, but has since fallen into the ether), though I have a fondness for the ripe passions of Live Flesh. And then you get something like All About My Mother, which reigns him in to award winning results.

Volver is the story of a Spanish family of mostly women. Cruz plays Raimunda, who opens the film tending to her dead father's grave. This is a tradition in their small town, and she and her daughter and sister Sole (Lola Duenas) clean up the grave in a Sisyphean struggle. Their family is fractured, and their grandmother is near death, while their mother Irene (Carmen Maura) was either killed or thought dead because of a fire. Raimunda returns home to her shiftless husband, and seeing as how he was fired, refuses his sexual advances. One gets the sense that this has been going on for a while, while the divide between them widens, the husband can't help but acknowledge that her daughter Paula (Yohana Coco) is now fourteen. And such leads to his murder. Paula stabbed him to rebuff his advances, but like any hot blooded mother, Raimunda decides the best thing to do is take care of it herself. Then fortune favors her when a neighbor is about to sell their restaurant. Paula takes the body to one of their freezers, and while there a crew member asks her to open the shop so they can feed the crew.

While fortune smiles, Irene returns from the grave either literally or metaphorically to help her daughters, and help build peace.

Beyond Almodovar's immaculate style (and this man knows his camera) is that he not only has a technical precision, is that he is (as can be guessed) an actor's director. That duality suits him well, because after years of sluggin through Cruz's attempts in America (including the wretched Vanilla Sky), she is flat out brilliant here, and her nomination was well deserved. That said, the fake padded junk in her trunk is excellent, and giving this naturally skinny woman some meat to her package makes her a revelation!

I can't say that I'm passionate about this movie (I tend to love early Almodovar more, but that's because I'm a pervert), but it was surely one of the best films of last year. But last year was a very good year. Sony Pictures Classics presents the film in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround. Extras include a commentary from the director and Cruz (with English subs, no doubt), a making of ( 8 min.) a tribute to Cruz (18 min.), and interviews with Almodovar (10 min.) Cruz (5 min.) and Maura (8 min.), along with a poster and picture gallery, and, as with all Sony discs, tons of bonus trailers.