Writer & Director
Pedro Almodóvar
(JULIETA, THE SKIN I LIVE IN, TALK TO HER, ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER)

Starring
Antonio Banderas, Nora Navas, Asier Flores, Asier Etxeandia and Penelope Cruz

For whatever unfortunate reasons, I’ve never had the pleasure or the honour of reviewing a Pedro Almodóvar film on my blog, until now. Though I haven’t seen many of his earlier works (they’re on my very long must-watch list!), this tremendously talented and one of a kind Spanish filmmaker instantly became one of my personal favourites after watching the 1999 Oscar-winning drama, ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. Simply put, no one embeds that very distinct feeling of watching a movie at the cinema (I intend for that statement to be taken in the most complimentary way possible) or captivates via their storytelling abilities quite like Almodóvar.

In PAIN & GLORY, which has been selected as the Spanish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards ®, Pedro Almodóvar teams up with Spanish stars Antonio Banderas (for an eighth time) and Penelope Cruz (for a sixth time) in what is arguably his most personal film to date. In present day Madrid, writer and film director Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) has hit a dead end in his professional and personal lives, simultaneously. The remastering and re-release of an earlier film he made gives Salvador an opportunity to become unstuck from the rut he is in, but instead the event re-opens some old wounds and only worsens his already deteriorating mental and physical condition. Just when his overall health plunges to an all new low, Salvador discovers the will to turn his life around in unexpected ways.

It’s also worth mentioning that PAIN & GLORY continuously flashes back to Salvador’s life as a young boy (now played by Asier Flores) in a poorer village with his father and mother (Penelope Cruz). Given that the life of our central character in present day is virtually at a complete standstill, there’s naturally a greater reliance on those flashback sequences to add context to the present and substance to the storytelling. As such, this first half of PAIN & GLORY was only intermittently engaging for me and often felt meandering. In its defence, that is likely the intention here. But I must say, it has never been a word I’ve used when describing an Almodóvar film before, and isn’t one I’m particularly comfortable using either. Furthermore, many of his usual trademarks are either nowhere to be seen or seen less frequently here, which meant that I rarely felt as though I was watching a movie written and directed by one of my favourite filmmakers.

Thankfully, this 21st feature film from Pedro Almodóvar is more like the Almodóvar I know in its second half. As Salvador’s life in the present begins to turn, the plot instantly uncovers its hidden layers and is really quite rich. This certainly earns the film a certain amount of appreciation from the viewer. Simultaneously, we are left to draw our own conclusions to certain details depicting his life as a child, which are rather confronting and somewhat worrisome. Providing that this development in the film doesn’t prevail over all others, the second half also features a mightily impressive finale and the entire film showcases some of the very best acting we’ve seen from Antonio Banderas. 

3 ½ stars

Viewer Discretion
MA15+ (Strong drug use and brief nudity)

Trailer
PAIN & GLORY (DOLOR Y GLORIA)

Moviedoc thanks Universal Pictures for the invite to the screening of this film.

PAIN & GLORY (DOLOR Y GLORIA) is released in cinemas throughout Australia from 7th of November, 2019.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc
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