Volver

Composite Score: 84.2

Starring: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio de la Tore, and Carlos Blanco

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Writer: Pedro Almodóvar

Genres: Comedy, Drama

MPAA Rating: R for some sexual content and language

Box Office: $85.60 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Volver is Pedro Almodóvar’s dramedy about women coping with and adapting to loss, betrayal, and abuse across multiple generations. The film follows Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas), sisters whose parents died in a fire three years before the start of the film, as they deal with the loss of their final maternal figure – Chus Lampreave’s Tia Paula – and the return of their mother’s spirit to take care of the things she left undone after her death. In the midst of all of this, Raimunda also has to protect her daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) from Paco, Raimunda’s lascivious husband, and deal with her friend Agustina’s (Blanca Portillo) cancer diagnosis and missing mother. It’s a lot of overlapping story threads that culminate in a final act that ties it all together in an emotionally impactful package of forgiveness, revelation, and interpersonal growth for all of the women involved. Cruz received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the woman at the center of it all, and Almodóvar’s script and directorial style go a long way in elevating the film even further, making it one that should be on everyone’s lists of must-see films.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                Much of the film’s conflict centers on abusive (physically, sexually, and emotionally) fathers and/or husbands/partners. If such thematic elements resonate with you in a way that could lead to spiraling, this might be a film you need to read up on before seeing. I will say that Almodóvar’s story is one of triumph and success in spite of the abuses these women have faced, but that doesn’t necessarily make the themes any less potentially triggering. It is a very positive film, but it takes some detours into negative territories before it arrives at its redemptive finale.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                Like so many of Almodóvar’s films, Volver offers positive examples of female relationships on multiple levels – sisters, mothers and daughters, close friends, and even acquaintances. Watching this film, I was struck by how authentic and uplifting the many different interpersonal connections it contains are. Is everything between all of these women perfect? Absolutely not, all of them have baggage, and much of it is tied to their connections with each other, but at the end of the day, those connections are what keep them afloat in the midst of life’s many trials. While this is more of a positive for the female audiences, this is something that more men could work on celebrating as well. With so many portrayals in popular culture of relationships built on implicit competition and constant striving to one-up, it is refreshing to get a film that showcases the positive impact we can have on each other when we lead with empathy and compassion.

                Volver also happens to be an excellently-cast film with great performances at every turn. The film’s central characters do such a great job playing off of each other that it’s difficult to pick out any particular performance above the rest, which is perhaps why Cruz did not win the Oscar this year, losing out to Helen Mirren for The Queen. All of them fit into their roles beautifully and accentuate the performances of their costars in ways that make the whole film shine. Cruz, while playing the most charismatic character in the film, takes care to never dominate her scenes, fulfilling the role of mother and sister and daughter in whichever moment she needs to. Likewise, Dueñas, Portillo, and Cobo handle their business well, inhabiting fleshed-out characters with lives that their on-screen roles can only hint at, but excellently. Even Carmen Maura, as Raimunda’s and Sole’s mother Irene, lives in her role well, never feeling out of place in a world otherwise devoid of supernatural phenomena.

                Volver is a beautifully cast, well-acted, gorgeously directed triumph of a film about women and their relationships and overcoming abuse through community and family, making it one of Almodóvar’s best and one of the Greatest Films of All Time. Its heavy subject matter should be noted before diving in headfirst, but if you’re clear on that, it’s a film that everyone needs to see at some point in their lives. It is currently available to rent on most streaming services if you need to know how to find it in the near future.