MovieChat Forums > Los abrazos rotos (2010) Discussion > Not his best (spoilers)

Not his best (spoilers)

posted 15 years ago by objective-critic
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Nobody can tell a simple story as well as Pedro Almodóvar. He takes basic stories, drop fabulously flawed characters (often anchored by Cruize) and than peel those characters like onions layer by layer.

Here he tries something different. We get a woven pattern of entangled stories that are opened up like a Russian nested doll. It is not the straight forward story-in-story as in “All about my mother”. The characters remain uncomplicated and single dimensional; they walk their own talk.

Does it work? Well to a certain level, but unfortunately this is not the best I’ve seem from Pedro and left slightly deflated.

The moving disobeys one of the fundamental rules of movie making. If a scene does not add to the overall story it should not be in the movie. One of a couple of examples is the substantial screen time invested in Lena’s parent’s story and the fact that she worked for Ernesto; however the story could have worked without any knowledge of this. Another is the introduction of Ray X’s current lover – who has a two liner: “I hope this is not your other wife” and “I am not planning in the near future” in answer to Ray X’s comment of never to get married. (Sounds more like Pedro giving all men a little insight here!)

Pedro also tried things that might have looked great on paper, but lost its impact on screen: Mateo caressing the screen of him and Lena kissing. (Come on, if you liked that you would like anything corny!) Now that I mentioned corny, the line: “A good movie deserves to be remade, even if blindly”, was awfully corny, but that might be due to the translation, so I will let it go.

It did have wonderful moments: Ernesto pretending to be dead, Cruize lipsinking to her message to Ernesto and Judit calling Harry on the beach.

As I said, Pedro is a master at storytelling, but this one suffers through a bit of too much “make-up”. If you are a newcomer to Pedro’s work, revisit ‘All about my mother”, “Talk to her” and “Volver” to see his true mastery.

[–] imightbedesperate 15 years ago

The story with Lena's parents was to give her a moral compass. Without it she would essentially be getting her just desserts when things fall apart with Ernesto. It was also one of the ongoing themes of the movie - Lena buys her fathers life for a time and the price she pays herself is in her own death. Lena's story is also the opposite of Judit's who does not use her pregnancy to emotionally blackmail Mateo.

From memory the important thing in the scene with Ray X's lover was the phone call and the BF was just set dressing to make the scene more interesting. It speaks well for a scene that was purely expository that we don't actually recall the exposition.

And re the movie being corny. I find that Almodovar is becoming increasingly sentimental in his movies and I love it. I think the screen kiss was very similar to other moments in his more recent work like the singing scene in Volver or the very last letter at the end of Bad Education.