Penélope Cruz has come a long way from the phonetically performed line readings in 2001’s Vanilla Sky to her 2008 Oscar-winning turn in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But the actress is never better than when she’s speaking her native language for her friend, Spanish writer-director Pedro Almodóvar. His new film noir, Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos), marks their fourth partnership, and gives Cruz yet another juicy role — perhaps even juicier than the pregnant-nun part she had in his 1999 film All About My Mother.
Cruz stars as Lena, an actress with innate talent but dubious skill who’s torn between two men: Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez), her producer/lover, is funding her film and her lifestyle; her director/soulmate Mateo (Lluís Homar) is opening her up emotionally and, um, in other ways. The entire narrative is filtered through the lens of blind screenwriter Harry Caine — actually a middle-aged Mateo using a pseudonym — as he rewinds, replays, and re-edits the movie of his life.
Along the way, we see a handful of scenes from the film-within-the-film, Girls and Suitcases, an oddball comedy based on the director's own Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Sharp-eyed Almódovar fans may recognize the set: It was shot in the same corner of the studio where Women was shot 20 years ago.
Broken Embraces opens November 20 in New York City and December 11 in Los Angeles from Sony Pictures Classics.
