I was visiting my sister in Spain the year the Pedro Almodovar film “All About My Mother” was up for an Oscar for best foreign film.
My sister and I talked about staying up until 2 or 3 a.m. to watch the ceremony, but eventually decided that would be crazy, and went to bed. But I got the sense that most of Spain would be tuning into the early-morning Academy Awards broadcast to watch Almodovar — considered a shoo-in for the award, which he won — collect his Oscar. “He is like a God here,” my sister informed me.
I’m not a member of the Almodovar cult, but I like his films, and I understand why it exists. Almodovar, like all great directors, has a unique vision and sense of style, a knack for paying tribute to great cinema while also expanding the medium’s possibilities. Since “All About My Mother,” he has been on an impressive run, making “Talk to Her,” “Bad Education,” and “Volver.” So I guess he was due for a letdown.
His latest film, “Broken Embraces,” starts out promisingly. It’s a film noir, filmed in the bold and colorful palette Almodovar favors, and with his trademark sense of soap opera, melodrama (think Douglas Sirk, or some other classic “women’s” picture from the ’40s or ’50s), comedy and the absurd. The scenario is far-fetched but compelling: A blind screenwriter is approached by a young man, who wants to collaborate with him on a film project. The screenwriter seems to recognize the young man, and has his assistant escort him from his apartment. Meanwhile, the film cuts back in time to focus on a creepy millionaire financier who has recently died, and shows us how he met his mistress, Lena (Almodovar regular Penelope Cruz). (In a typically lurid sensational Almodovar twist, Lena is the millionaire’s secretary — but the two connect through an escort service where Cruz works when she needs extra money.) The screenwriter, we learn, keeps a photograph of Lena in his desk. How is the screenwriter connected to the millionaire? And who is the young man, and why does he want to collaborate with the director?
Questions are answered, and more questions arise. We learn that the screenwriter was once a sighted director; one day Lena arrives to audition for a role in one of his films. Immediately, the film director is smitten. She has no real acting experience, but he casts her as his star. Of course, this makes the creepy millionaire jealous, and he enlists his creepy son to follow the film director and Lena around with a video camera, recording their every move. At the end of the day, the creepy son gives the creepy millionaire the tapes, and the creepy millionaire watches them with a lip reader, who tells him what Lena and the film director are saying to each other. Gee, do you think trouble’s on the horizon?
Anyway, the film is good fun for about half of its 127-minute running time. The plot twists and mysteries pile upon each other, and the story is intriguing and clever. Cruz is a bewitching femme fatale; the rest of the cast (Jose Luis Lomez as the creepy millionaire, Lluis Homar as the film director/screenwriter) is also excellent. And Almodovar’s visual sense is, as always, top notch. Like all of his films, “Broken Embraces” is a parade of sumptuous and unforgettable images: Cruz plunging down a staircase in a bright red coat, a blind man standing on a beach while a boy runs and plays in front of him. But eventually I began to lose patience with “Broken Embraces.”
In its second half, the plot starts to feel both predictable and trite (one of the movie’s surprises, that the SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE SURPRISE IS! film director’s assistant is really his son, came as no surprise to me), and by the time the credits rolled, I didn’t really care about any of the characters. “Broken Embraces” suggests that the cinema contains redemptive and healing powers — in the final scene, the screenwriter is seen editing his unfinished film with Lena — but this message, in light of all the tragedy that has come before, seems weirdly shallow and pointless. (I also didn’t believe that the assistant would be so calm and accepting when learning that the film director was his father. His whole attitude can be summed up as: “Really? Well, that’s great. I’ve always really liked him.”) The film uses pretty images to tell a sad but ultimately hopeful story, without fully exploring the complex emotions churning underneath the surface. Of course, as many critics have pointed out, subpar Almodovar is still better than most movies, but since “Broken Embraces” basically functions as a less-successful retread of his better work, I’d recommend watching one of his earlier films.
OSCAR THOUGHTS
So it’s that time of year again, when I dutifully attempt to see all of the films nominated for best picture, actress, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress, director, adapted screenplay and original screenplay. When I heard that the best picture category had been expanded to 10 films, I was worried, but the expansion basically enabled voters to nominate cool films I already saw, the sorts of films that usually don’t get nominated because they’re too much fun. I’m thinking of “District 9,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Up.”
The only film up for best picture that I haven’t seen is “The Blind Side,” mainly because I found the preview so revolting. (It looked like a message movie from 1982, in which saintly white people save a poor black boy from a life of poverty, and teach us all about tolerance and racial harmony in the process.) Since then, I’ve actually heard positive things about “The Blind Side,” so maybe it was just a bad preview.
In any case, I predict a two-way race between “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” with maybe a dark horse like “Up in the Air” generating some buzz.
Much to my dismay, Penelope Cruz was nominated for best supporting actress in “Nine,” another film I have no interest in seeing. But since the only showing is at 3:55 at the Spectrum, I might not get to see it. I will go see “The Lovely Bones,” though, because Stanley Tucci was nominated for best supporting actor. Unfortunately, I can’t get Roger Ebert’s negative review of the film out of my head. (“‘The Lovely Bones’ is a deplorable film with this message: If you’re a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to,” Ebert writes, in a review that you can find here here. “You can get together in heaven with the other teenage victims of the same killer, and gaze down in benevolence upon your family members as they mourn you and realize what a wonderful person you were. Sure, you miss your friends, but your fellow fatalities come dancing to greet you in a meadow of wildflowers, and how cool is that?”) But maybe “The Lovely Bones” is really great. In any case, I guess I’m going to find out.
So I’ve got nine films to try to see (“The Blind Side,” “Crazy Heart,” “The Last Station,” “Julie & Julia,” “The Messenger,” “The Lovely Bones,” “Nine,” “In the Loop,” “A Single Man”) in the next month, which should keep me pretty busy.
Got a comment? E-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.
