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Parallel Mothers, 2021
Janis (Penelope Cruz) finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a relationship with a married colleague (Israel Elejalde). Deciding to have the baby, Janis meets pregnant teenager Ana (Milena Smit) when the two share the same maternity ward. As complications arise in both of their lives, Janis ends up inviting Ana to live with her. But complications around the babies and the womens’ relationships to the children and each other take many unexpected turns.
At once meditative and chock full of plot and character revelations, this is a breathtaking and moving film.
In a movie this strong and also this full of plot developments, it’s hard to talk about it in any kind of specific way for fear of giving things away. But there are still some things that can be safely said without revealing key plot points.
The first is the fierce lead performance from Cruz, as a woman who decides to have a baby despite knowing that she will be going it alone. Deciding to have her child carries a particular weight, as Janis is also in the middle of a quest to find the location of her grandfather’s body. Having promised her mother and grandmother to locate her grandfather, who was executed by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War, the awareness of what it means to become part of a generational chain weighs on her. Janis has a dedication to the truth and integrity, and these aspects of her character will test and turn on her in ways she could never imagine later in the film.
Smit is also very good as Ana, a young woman grappling with the direction of her life, her complicated relationship with a mother (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) who is up-front about the ways that being a mother derailed her life, her sexuality, and the traumatic context around her own pregnancy. Ana is the more impulsive character of the two, and certainly at times more annoying. Smit is actually in her 20s, and she does a lot to create a vulnerability in her character to ground Ana as a teen.
The supporting cast is strong as well, including Elejalde as a man who is clearly enamored with Janis, but is starkly brought to the realization that he doesn’t have a say in how she lives her life. His overt attempts to distance himself from the pregnancy--first trying to push Janis into an abortion and later questioning the baby’s paternity--are pretty gross. But the character is given some dimension by his involvement in the quest to locate Janis’s grandfather. The splendid Rossy de Palma is on hand as Janis’s closest confidant.
Visually the film is very engaging. The stylistic choices are at times in-your-face and at times more subtle. A repeated motif of people or items framed in red permeates the whole film, from framed pictures to the stitching on the pillows in a hotel room. Cruz has such an interesting face, and Almodovar always frames her to the best effect.
I had very few qualms with this one. There was one development in the ever-evolving relationship between Janis and Ana that I didn’t totally buy, either realistically or thematically. For the first half of the film, the plot about searching for the grandfather’s grave didn’t feel entirely connected, but by the last act it strongly cohered with the rest of what happened in the movie.
A fantastic, moving film.
Parallel Mothers, 2021
Janis (Penelope Cruz) finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a relationship with a married colleague (Israel Elejalde). Deciding to have the baby, Janis meets pregnant teenager Ana (Milena Smit) when the two share the same maternity ward. As complications arise in both of their lives, Janis ends up inviting Ana to live with her. But complications around the babies and the womens’ relationships to the children and each other take many unexpected turns.
At once meditative and chock full of plot and character revelations, this is a breathtaking and moving film.
In a movie this strong and also this full of plot developments, it’s hard to talk about it in any kind of specific way for fear of giving things away. But there are still some things that can be safely said without revealing key plot points.
The first is the fierce lead performance from Cruz, as a woman who decides to have a baby despite knowing that she will be going it alone. Deciding to have her child carries a particular weight, as Janis is also in the middle of a quest to find the location of her grandfather’s body. Having promised her mother and grandmother to locate her grandfather, who was executed by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War, the awareness of what it means to become part of a generational chain weighs on her. Janis has a dedication to the truth and integrity, and these aspects of her character will test and turn on her in ways she could never imagine later in the film.
Smit is also very good as Ana, a young woman grappling with the direction of her life, her complicated relationship with a mother (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) who is up-front about the ways that being a mother derailed her life, her sexuality, and the traumatic context around her own pregnancy. Ana is the more impulsive character of the two, and certainly at times more annoying. Smit is actually in her 20s, and she does a lot to create a vulnerability in her character to ground Ana as a teen.
The supporting cast is strong as well, including Elejalde as a man who is clearly enamored with Janis, but is starkly brought to the realization that he doesn’t have a say in how she lives her life. His overt attempts to distance himself from the pregnancy--first trying to push Janis into an abortion and later questioning the baby’s paternity--are pretty gross. But the character is given some dimension by his involvement in the quest to locate Janis’s grandfather. The splendid Rossy de Palma is on hand as Janis’s closest confidant.
Visually the film is very engaging. The stylistic choices are at times in-your-face and at times more subtle. A repeated motif of people or items framed in red permeates the whole film, from framed pictures to the stitching on the pillows in a hotel room. Cruz has such an interesting face, and Almodovar always frames her to the best effect.
I had very few qualms with this one. There was one development in the ever-evolving relationship between Janis and Ana that I didn’t totally buy, either realistically or thematically. For the first half of the film, the plot about searching for the grandfather’s grave didn’t feel entirely connected, but by the last act it strongly cohered with the rest of what happened in the movie.
A fantastic, moving film.