Parallel Mothers (2021 | Spain | 123 minutes | Pedro Almodovar)
Spain’s greatest cultural export, Pedro Almodovar (no offense, Picasso), returns with another deeply moving and powerful melodrama. It was an emotional experience for me, and I broke down crying in my car when I left the screening.
Parallel Mothers is about the unique bond, from coincidence, that brings together two women, single mothers at very different places in their lives. Janis (Penelope Cruz) is a photographer who is excited at becoming pregnant later in her life after a fling with an archeologist she photographs. Ana (Milena Smit) is seventeen and is more anxious and her future far more uncertain and her support network less stable. Their paths cross when they’re both in the hospital to give birth at the same time. The timing of their children’s birth dates gives the two very different women a bond that is, at various times, held together by coincidence, kinship, tragedy, romance, and friendship.
This drama is heavy, but never heavy-handed. I have a severe allergy to most melodramas, breaking out in hives when I sense emotional manipulation, but there’s none of that here. For all of the heaviness of this movie, I still found it to be very warm-hearted. Almodovar clearly loves his actors and has great affection for them (this is Penelope Cruz’s eighth movie with him). This movie has some heart-wrenching scenes but the characters are never swallowed whole by their trauma.
While most of the movie is about the relationship between Ana and Janis, there’s a subplot where Janis’s romance with the archeologist Arturo (Israel Elejalde) is interspersed throughout the movie because he may be able to help Janis’s family and neighbors find answers and excavate the mass graves that have been holding their relatives from the Spanish Civil War. How refreshing to see a movie (partially) about the horrors of fascism that doesn’t feel like it’s hitting you over the head with its point. For all of the mutual respect and trust in the relationships between Almodovar and his stars, there’s a similar one with his audience, confident that they will understand his point without being overwhelmed with context.
I feel like I may have already revealed too much about this movie, but it’s a special one that I hope people see and savor. I’ve already said it was one of my favorite movies of the year, and now that it’s getting a wide release it can be enjoyed.
Parallel Mothers is currently playing at SIFF Cinema Egyptian.