Parallel Mothers

Two women put in the same room in a hospital during labour form a friendship. One is a successful photographer the other is a lonely ignored single child of a famous actress.

Janice is also trying to get the mass grave of her great grandfather exhumed but the Spanish civil war historical memory law is making that difficult.

This is a great movie of complex situations and how two women have to deal with the realities of the cards life has dealt them.

Penelope Cruz is up for an Oscar for this role, in my mind well deserved.

The IMDb synopsis for 'Parallel Mothers' reads, "The story of two mothers who give birth the same day." I think this could use some work. It really doesn't sell the film at all. In fact it makes it sound painfully dull and uninteresting. You don't have to give anything away about the story. You just need to hint that there will be some reason for drama and to justify a film being made about this story.

The film is a strange one. There are some pretty serious things that happen, however the film seems to be doing its utmost to have characters under-react to everything. There is one particularly shocking moment in this film that I thought was going to trigger all kinds of hell. But it just kind of got an open-mouthed shock look for a little while and was then moved on from. They didn't even come back to it much at any point. There are numerous smaller occurrences like this too. It's very strange.

The drama was enough to carry a movie though and it did enough to keep me interested. The runtime pushed itself 15-20 minutes longer than needed. The whole epilogue sequence didn't really do anything for me and felt very unconnected to the rest of the film. There were better and more powerful ways they could have wrapped the film up for sure.

Penelope Cruz is very good as always. She has more than enough charm and charisma to carry a film by herself. She certainly payed a part in keeping the film afloat. This isn't one I'd go out of my way to recommend, but it's harmless and might be to some of your liking. 6/10.

Very good turn by Pedro Almodovar, one of his best films of the last years.

Its a very unpredictable film that seemingly is about a certain topic and turns out to deliver something completely different. An interesting experiment that pays off very well because at one point you realize to watch a completely different movie than you thought you would. Genius.

The acting was great. I really loved Penelope Cruz who was as expected great. Almodovar truly knows how to put his muse in scene. But also Milena Smit was great and both had a wonderful on screen chemistry. Its a fantastic screenplay and had many good elements like a very decent cinematography and great score.

One little issues I had with it was that it had several loose ends, but I think thats because of the nature of the film and how it is written so I think its nothing big to blame it for. I really enjoyed the characters, although they sometimes made weird decsisions but they were extremely well created. A must see and a typical Pedro Almodovar, although not a very typical movie.

Parallel Mothers

This was not one of Almodovar's finest movies, the characters were superficial and lacked any sort of emotional intelligence, in fact they were verging on caricatures of human beings.

The plot was quite bizarre lacking any heft, something about a genetic legacy and not being able to deny history. The plot took a wrong turn when it fixated about the paternity for one baby but the other baby "oh it looks like my grandmother", was sufficient.

The dialogue skated on the surface and we had some strange scenes to titillate the viewer, I wasn't convinced. Had it not been for the fabulous Penelope Cruz who threw her all into the project this would've been a Spanish turkey.

I'm giving this a weak 6 outta 10, meaning if you are an Almodovar fan you have to see it.

Madres Paralelas is a Spanish movie, telling the story of two women that give birth at the same time, and the way that their lives connect after this seemingly innocent event.

The movie clearly approaches a political / historical topic in Spain which I have to be honest I wasn't familiar with, and for that sake alone I am glad I got to see it and be familiar with the topic. I see some of the criticism towards the film stems with the fact that the director could've explore this topic deeper due to its serious nature, however for me personally not knowing the reality I liked the parallelism between the issue and what the main character went through in her personal life.

It seems clear the message of wishing to preserve the truth of her lineage and live by her own values - it's ultimately a story not only about motherhood but also how our deepest values can have great impact in some of our most critical decisions in life.

Penélope Cruz gives a strong performance and the movie while not ground breaking has an interesting story and contrary to what I have heard not at all predictable. You might say it's a very unlikely situation and of course as in all films a dramatized plot, however not impossible to happen and it serves the purpose of the message.

With this being, for me, one of the worst Academy Award season in terms of movie quality I found this one a good watch!