Volver film review

certificate_15

VOLVER

Pedro Almodovar's work has consistently divided its audience. There are those who adore the flamboyant Spanish director's every move and cherish the fact that he is consistently nominated for the highest awards. But on the other hand, many find his work to be a mish-mash of camp histrionics which bear little relation to the real world.

Even the staunchest doubter is likely to revise his opinion after seeing Volver (To Come Back). This is Almodovar's most sophisticated film to date: a joyous, touching, funny and thrilling account of the up-and-downs of family life. Part thriller, part comedy and part drama, it also offers Penelope Cruz the chance to show just why she is so highly rated as an actress in her native country, and not just the piece of arm candy that we have come to know from her Hollywood offerings.

Cruz plays Raimunda, a working class mother of a precocious teenage daughter, who lives in a council flat in the city with her layabout husband. When her aunt dies, Raimunda returns for the funeral to her native village in the country. There she joins her sister Sole (Lola Duenas) for the mourning, and both of them are very disturbed to hear gossip that their mother - presumed dead in a fire with her husband some years ago - has recently been seen in the town. Being a superstitious lot, Raimunda and her family put this down to a ghostly apparition and return to their normal lives in the big city.

Soon her slovenly husband becomes too much to bear, and when an unusual solution is found to this problem, Raimunda is off on an adventure that would have graced a Hitchcock film. She finds herself as the unlikely manager of a neighbouring restaurant, copes with a cancer-stricken friend, as well as her ditzy sister who may or may not still be seeing apparitions of their deceased mother. All of this comes on top of her own dark secret.

This is all frequently very funny, thanks to excellent performances from the cast - including Spanish legend Carmen Maura. But most of all, it's Almodovar's stamp that makes it such a pleasure: his depictions of the niggles of family life are spot on, and the twists and turns in his script are both devious and highly entertaining. Most of all though, it's a film that everyone can relate to, and the writer/director should start clearing space in his house for a whole new batch of awards.

Paul Hurley