All the performances in Broken Embraces are brilliant, none more so than from Cruz (who is maturing in Almodovar's films into a classic actress) and Homar (a smooth, cultured presence on screen).
Broken Embraces (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:92
Fresh:77
Rotten:15
Average Rating:6.9/10
Consensus: Pedro Almodovar's fourth film with Penélope Cruz isn't his finest work, but he brings his signature visual brilliance to this noirish tale, and the cast turns in some first-class performances.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for sexual content, language and some drug material
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release:Nov 20, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $596,723
Synopsis:
A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car rash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he not only lost his sight, he also lost , thef his...
A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car rash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he not only lost his sight, he also lost , thef his life.
Lena love o This man uses two names: Harry Caine, a playful pseudonym with which he signs his literary works, stories and scripts, and Mateo Blanco, his real name, with which he lives and signs the film he directs. After the accident, Mateo Blanco reduces himself to his seudonym, Harry Caine. If he can’t direct films he can only survive with the idea that
Mateo Blanco died on Lanzarote with his beloved Lena. In the present day, Harry Caine lives thanks to the scripts he writes and to the help he gets rom his faithful former production manager, Judit García, and from Diego, her son, his
secretary, typist and guide. Since he decided to live and tell stories, Harry is an active, attractive blind man who has
developed all his other senses in order to enjoy life, on a basis of irony and self‐induced amnesia. He has erased from his biography any trace of his first identity, Mateo Blanco. One night Diego has an accident and Harry takes care of him (his mother, Judit, is out of Madrid and they decide not to tell her anything so as not to alarm her). During the first nights of his convalescence, Diego asks him about the time when he answered to the name of Mateo Blanco, after a moment of astonishment Harry can’t refuse and he tells Diego hat happened fourteen years before with the idea of entertaining him, just as a father
tells his little child a story so that he’ll fall asleep. The story of Mateo, Lena,
Judit and Ernesto Martel is a story of “amour fou”, dominated by fatality, jealously, the abuse of power, treachery and a guilt complex. A moving and terrible story, the most expressive image of which is the photo of two lovers embracing, torn into a thousand pieces. --© Sony Pictures Classics
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Starring: Penélope Cruz, Lluis Homar, Lola Dueñas, Ángela Molina
Starring: Penélope Cruz, Lluis Homar, Lola Dueñas, Ángela Molina, Carlos Leal, Ruben Ochandiano, Rossy De Palma, Tamar Novas, Blanca Portillo, Kiti Manver, Chus Lampreave
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar
Producer: Agustin Almodovar
Composer: Alberto Iglesias
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Reviews for Broken Embraces
While Cruz acquits herself capably, this is, necessarily, an exercise in virtuosic superficiality.
Even though it may not stand among Almodóvar's best, it's still a wildly enjoyable, sumptuous, and rewarding film.
The work of a filmmaker at the peak of his powers and is one of the few genuine must-sees of the season.
Amid all this dazzling artifice, the film's most authentic source of power comes from its star.
Cruz is creased and bent by the pressures the movie’s hectic plot pounds her with. She is never less than ‘perfect’, but she also deeply human and no longer impossible… and that’s movie magic.
A cubist soap opera with enough time-shifted twists and turns to induce travel sickness, Broken Embraces is a distinctly disposable offering from Almodovar. Nevertheless, even his throwaway efforts would be considered absolute keepers by most filmmakers.
Spain's best-known living director Pedro Almodovar ranks among the modern masters of melodrama -- as he demonstrates once again in Broken Embraces
The beauty of Broken Embraces is the joy Almodóvar brings to his storytelling. The movie is as personal and rewarding a contribution to his remarkable body of work as All About My Mother and Talk to Her.
Almodovar could've played it entirely for laughs, with a flick of his wrist and a tonal adjustment. It's best he didn't, though. The movie putters near the end, but it's a film lover's delight.
While it lacks the punchy comedy of Volver and the aching sadness of Bad Education, Broken Embraces remains a real treat for fans of the director.
Sorry, Pedro, but this tepid trudge through the shallow stuff of men is most remarkable for being such a dramatic under-performer.
Even though it may not be Almodovar’s best film, it is still eminently watchable and thoroughly enjoyable.
Hypnotic beauty and emotion reveal the Spanish director to be still at the height of his powers.
In Broken Embraces, his vibrant new mixed genre thriller, he is out to entertain and intrigue. Almodovar also wants to tell us something about desire and his love of cinema.
Tending to meander at times, there's still plenty to enjoy if typical Almodovar multiple narratives don't confuse you.
Pedro Almodovar delivers yet another visually rich and quirky viewing experience with the release of his 17th big screen feature.
The sure cinematic hand of Pedro Almodóvar falters and fumbles here as he attempts to fuse together a melodrama with a thriller plus something of a spiritual journey for his central character, Mateo ... superbly portrayed by Lluis Homar
With its themes of revenge, sexual obsession, love and jealousy, Pedro Almodóvar follows his own tried and true recipe for grand melodrama...characters spin complex webs. It's engaging and involving, although it is not Almodóvar's best work
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