Review of Broken Embraces (2009) by Matt H — 26 Sep 2013

After having watched the good "Talk to Her" and the masterpiece "The Skin I Live In," I was really expecting a lot from my 3rd Almodovar movie, and, unfortunately my expectations were not met.

Broken Embraces is a melodramatic soap, and even worse, a boring one at that. Take the love triangle seen a million times with rich guy and his mistress, throw in an uninteresting writer/filmmaker, and you've already seen this movie.

Well made, I admit, but really a shallow piece of work when examined at all. A small revelation about Diego near the end is laughingly obvious and dull, very much like the rest of this movie. I think this is a case of the director and audience clashing over stakes and priorities; the big revelation is almost less about what happens to Cruz than what the writer/director's long time partner did a long time ago to hurt the guy's movie, the restoration of which is supposed to be the emotional climax of the film.

The problem is no ones cares, and the movie within the movie doesn't look so hot anyways.