Film Review: Parallel Mothers

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Having seen many of Pedro Almodóvar’s previous films, it’s hard to know what to expect half the time, but you’re always guaranteed an over-the-top tone, be it dramatic or comedic. The colours will be on the primary spectrum and very saturated, it will more than likely feature a female protagonist, and it will deal with sexual or romantic liberation and fluidity through expectations and subversions of gender stereotypes. And while this is undoubtedly an Almodóvar film, it breaks away from a few of his directorial trademarks while also reinforcing why his style of filmmaking is so incredibly engaging.

This is definitely Almódovar at some of his most melodramatic, yet realistically pulled back. He still paints in big bold brushstrokes, but is considerably more careful with the placement of the brush. His typical flourishes of colour appear throughout but are fairly washed out & dulled down for the majority of the film, to match the darker & more dramatic tone. Nearly every shot is gorgeously framed to compliment the colours, staging the characters in carefully composed two-shots.

Beautiful performances from the two leads, Penelope Cruz, who has worked with Almodóvar many times, and Milena Smit, in her second feature film (her first with Almodóvar). Two newly-expecting mothers of opposite backstories; Janis, a middle-aged photographer from a long line of loving single mothers, whose baby is the love-child of a work fling, archaeologist Arturo; and Ana, a teenager whose mother is too busy to take proper care of her, whose baby is the product of non-consensual drunken sex at a teenage party and whose father is unknown (until later into the film). Another stand-out performance comes from charismatic Almodóvar regular Rossy De Palma, who steals every scene she’s in as Janis’ best friend & manager Elena.

Almodóvar effortlessly manages to create a complex narrative with two central characters that is still easy to follow, but does not offer to hold the audience’s hand, encouraging watchers to put the pieces together themselves, and possibly come to their own conclusions long before even the characters do. 

Being just as dramatic as the average Almodóvar film, it leans into some “Soap Opera” tendencies with it’s incredibly dramatic storyline and declarations of love and death, but oddly fitting is the “soap opera effect” itself, (a form of motion blur commonly seen in soap operas and daytime TV) developed in some shots, undeniably the result of shooting digitally instead of on film, which Almodóvar himself has admitted he’s not a fan of. This method may too be credited as the cause of some of the colour desaturation. This is his fifth time shooting digitally since I'm So Excited in 2013.

A wonderful piece of editing I appreciated was a scene in which Janis is about to open the door for her baby’s father Arturo, which cuts to the shot on the other side of the door, where she is suddenly in a completely different outfit, and we’re taken back nine months earlier in time to her explaining to Arturo that she has fallen pregnant, then eventually we are whisked back to the present, cutting straight to Janis opening the door again in the present day, followed by the moving scene of Arturo seeing the baby for the first time.

Parallel Mothers is at its heart a story of embracing generations: two women of different generations share the beauty of their newborn babies together, whilst a quiet subplot of intergenerational connection to ancestry churns over in the background. Janis, born of a long line of single mothers enforces the overall sense of maternal love as a core theme consistently celebrated throughout the movie, which despite the films’ dark moments, consolidates the plot into an overall positive story.

The film screening was preceded by a foreword from Almódovar himself from his home office in Madrid, where he explains that this is one of his most personal films, and you can see it from the care and passion put into every detailed shot.

Parallel Mothers is showing in cinemas from today, Thursday 27th January 2022.

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