Movie Review: Parallel Mothers
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
Pedro Almodóvar’s exploration of motherhood and family, Parallel Mothers (“Madres paralelas”), is a vivid and wonderfully acted piece of filmmaking that, again, showcases the director’s favorite muse – Penélope Cruz – and allows the filmmaker to fully explore his fascination with the stories of women.
In this story, two pregnant women – Janis (Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit) – meet and befriend each other in the hospital room they share prior to giving birth to their children. Both Janis and Ana are single mothers having unplanned children. Middle-aged Janis is thrilled with the prospect of being a mother while the much younger Ana is much less enthusiastic, almost to the point of regretting her pregnancy. During their hospital stay, the women bond over walks through the hospital corridors, before giving birth to their daughters. Then, after being released from the hospital, the two women reconnect and their relationship, and that of their daughters, begin to evolve and take them all down new and unexpected paths.
While it might not be one of Almodóvar’s most personal and emotional works, it does resonate with many of his usual motifs and concerns (he also wrote the film’s screenplay) as well as offer portrayals of various mother-daughter relationships that play expertly to the central theme of motherhood. As in the case with many of his films, the photography utilized is beautiful. Cinematographer José Luis Alcaine shoots everything in such a lovely way that even the painful scenes float an air of tranquility and peace within them that overcomes some of the negativity of the characters’ emotional states. As edited by Teresa Font, the film moves effortlessly from one arc to another, until the two merge and eventually become a singular tale of crushing anguish and depression.
Both Cruz and Smit are outstanding in their respective roles, with Cruz perhaps carrying the heavier burden of the two as she comes to terms with the fate of Janis’s child and a recently unearthed tragedy in her family’s past that shadows the current traumatic events befalling her. Smit manages to hold her own as well, giving her character an unexpected strength that grows in a rewarding and thoughtful way throughout the film.
Although Parallel Mothers is undoubtedly an Almodóvar product, there is no question that the film does not revolve around Cruz and her performance. It is an outstanding depiction of motherhood and the joys and crises it can bring to an individual while simultaneously examining the importance of the relationship of family. This fact makes it one of Almodóvar’s more resonating works.
Mike Tyrkus
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