In a less skilled filmmaker’s hands, that might have seemed too tidy.
When Janis eventually comes clean at great personal cost, her honesty earns her redemption but also another unexpected gift of providence toward the end. Almodóvar presents the character’s guarded vulnerability in touching contrast to Janis’ more turbulent nature.Ĭruz holds nothing back, exposing the yearning and devastating hurt of a woman initially willing to bend her principles in order to protect her happiness. Newcomer Smit is a real find as Ana, her path to maturity paved by searing pain, misplaced self-castigation, and ultimately, by radiant compassion. The challenges and contradictions of being a woman bring soulful textures to scene after scene even the potentially explosive revelation of sexual trauma is treated as one more crushing weight among many tests of a woman’s resilience. This is very much true of Sánchez-Gijón’s proudly self-possessed Teresa, who unburdens herself to Janis in a lovely confessional scene, admitting she never felt the vocation to be a wife or mother, her first love being the theater. The limitless love Almodóvar has shown toward his female characters throughout his career is on abundant display here, eschewing judgment and finding forgiveness even for the selfishness and flaws that cause them shame. When a newly emancipated Ana - physically transformed, and untethered from both her mother and the father who rejected her - finds her way back into Janis’ life, the nature of their relationship changes dramatically, making it inevitable that the truth will surface. She wrestles with a moral dilemma in the present as she continues to pursue the project to bring the secrets of the past to light in her native village. Janis and Ana remain in contact at first, but the photographer makes an alarming discovery that prompts her to cut herself off from almost everyone. In typically playful yet somber Almodóvarian fashion, an impassioned monologue from the play performed by Teresa during a rehearsal provides a meta reflection on the fate of discarded women in Spain. When Teresa is cast as the lead in a Lorca drama, she takes off on a pre-Madrid regional tour, leaving Ana and the baby in the care of her housekeeper.
Both are present for the births, filmed in intimate close-ups on the mothers’ faces, as agonizing miracles. Ana’s actress mother, Teresa (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), has promised to help raise her granddaughter, named Anita, while Janis’ steadfast rock is her agent and dear friend Elena (Rossy de Palma). Both are single mothers whose pregnancies were unplanned, and while Janis is filled with joy by the unexpected surprise of a daughter at this relatively advanced point in her life, Ana, for reasons revealed only later, is overcome by depression. In the maternity ward, Janis meets the teenage Ana (Milena Smit) and a fast friendship is formed over labor pains. Meanwhile, Janis begins a relationship with the married Arturo and falls pregnant, freeing him of all responsibility once she decides to go ahead and have the child, whom she names Cecilia, after her grandmother.
Janis and her surviving relatives hope to have the body exhumed so they can give him a proper burial alongside his wife. According to her family, her great-grandfather was dumped there after being killed by fascists during the Spanish Civil War. After a photo shoot with forensic anthropologist Arturo (Israel Elejalde), Janis enlists his help in securing permits and funding from a historical society to excavate a mass grave in her childhood village. The actress responds with her most outstanding work since Volver.Ĭruz plays Janis, a successful commercial photographer named for Janis Joplin by her hippie mother, who died young and left her to be raised by her grandmother. Above all, it gives the marvelous Cruz one of the best roles of her career - a woman whose fulfillment is shattered by a startling truth that steers her toward deception, until she can no longer contain it. While Parallel Mothers doesn’t match the intricately interwoven layers of Almodóvar’s top-tier work - All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Pain and Glory - and some of its key plot disclosures can be seen coming, that doesn’t make the melodrama any less gripping or emotionally satisfying. Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)Ĭast: Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Rossy de Palma, Julieta Serrano