Review of Broken Embraces (2009) by Dean B — 01 Mar 2010

Pedro Almovodar's films have always had Byzantine plots (not for nothing was one of his early works titled "Labyrinth of Passion"), but "Broken Embraces" gets positively Escher-esque.

Incorporating huge plot points and character motivations from "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" with a dash of "Law of Desire" thrown in for good measure, the movie is so busy pretzelling itself into knots that it loses the emotional urgency and forcefulness it builds up in the first half.

(It's been several years since Almovodar has shown such physically and emotionally naked passion onscreen.) This slipping away is a pity, as Penelope Cruz is once again on fire in a tricky role that encourages her, a la "Vertigo," to assume multiple identities and different looks; she's not at the level she was with "Volver," but she's stretching a lot more than she did in Woody Allen's enjoyable trifle "Vicki Christina Barcelona.

" (Did Almovodar get the idea of borrowing from his earlier works from Allen's self-pilfering "Crimes and Misdemeanors" for "Match Point"?) The visuals, as you'd expect from Almovodar, are stunning--such reds!! Such sumptuous use of people's faces!--but everything just doesn't ultimately gell as throroughly as one would hope.

(Odd details, like announcing one character as gay and having another overdose, have no real payoff.) All one leaves the theater with are memories of a blaze of color, and the incandescent Cruz trying on various wigs and personas.

If Almovodar hadn't set the bar so high with his past works, this wouldn't be considered second-string; but he did, and so it is.