Broken Embraces

With its nods to noir filmmaking and the comical and popular Spanish culebrones style, Broken Embraces unravels through the eyes of the charming and troubled main character Harry Caine née Mateo Blanco, played with a great sense of world-weariness by Lluís Homar. Harry Caine is an ex-director come screenwriter with (literally) no vision, his view of the world and the manner in which he loses and gains it is the primary concern of the film. Its secondary concern is the further Almodóvar advancement for Penélope Cruz as a diverse and incredibly talented performer.

A mainstay of Almodóvar's offerings is a multilayered storyline, each new character bringing both a new piece of insight and the ability to loosen a thread that may just unravel as much as it can tangle. Harry Caine, it is revealed, left his identity and successful career as director after the demise of the film-within-a-film Girls and Suitcases. The making of the comedy turns to tragedy viewers begin to grasp, as Broken Embraces advances towards its final "aha!" moment. 

Without giving any of the inner workings away, Girls and Suitcases starred Almodóvar's frequent collaborator Penélope Cruz, her character Lena (as opposed to the character she plays in the film) is a woman trapped by circumstance, unhappily married to a much older, powerful man who allows her to pursue her dream of acting only if he can act as producer. He enlists his son, a budding director, to capture on film all the action on set. Watched wherever she goes, Cruz â€" brilliant in a way that only Almodóvar seems to be able to truly capture â€" is watched wherever she goes, and is all too aware of it. Gorgeous and doomed, this voyeuristic aspect becomes claustrophobic over time, and it is evident that tragedy looms.

Hovering on screen is Harry's friend and assistant, Judit. Played by the brilliant Blanca Portillo (always a welcome sight in Almodóvar's films) she may just hold the key to the past but is unwilling â€" through a combination of self-preservation and protectiveness for her son and friend â€" to fully divulge. As in most noir and mystery films, there comes the time when all must be revealed, and though it is framed by "and one more thing..." dialogue, the director is too deft to allow it to be mere trope, instead he plays it with a well-paced and lingering comic hand.

Broken Embraces may be remembered as a great film, but it is only a very good film when considered against Almodóvar's recent hat-trick of Talk to Her, Bad Education and Volver, all as equally brilliant as another. While it lacks the punchy comedy of Volver and the aching sadness of Bad Education, Broken Embraces remains a real treat for fans of the director.