Volver (2006)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Volver (2006) – P. Almodóvar

There are some darker undertones here in what otherwise is a “fun” ghost story from Pedro Almodóvar.  As usual, his film features women in the major roles and their relationships are the focus – the darkness arises from how women are treated by men.  Penelope Cruz plays Raimunda, a woman whose mother (Carmen Maura) has died three years earlier (in a fire with Raimunda’s father).  She suddenly finds herself a single mum and makes due by taking over an empty restaurant and serving a visiting film crew lunch for a few weeks (and also staging their wrap party).  She doesn’t know that her sister (Lola Dueñas) has been receiving ongoing visitations from her mum, which began soon after the mum’s sister passed away.  A subplot finds the aunt’s neighbour on a quest to find her own missing mum.  Almodóvar’s world is a candy-coloured one, filled with chatty eccentric characters who deal with mundane (and deadly serious) problems with aplomb. The fantastical and supernatural elements are generally played for comic effect (but the soundtrack feels like something Bernard Herrmann wrote for Hitchcock at times).  Of course, all of the various plot threads are nicely tied together by the end (although viewers might not be able to shake off some of the darkness).  I find Almodóvar’s films to be hit or miss and while this one falls on the positive side of his oeuvre, I can’t help feeling that it is just a shade too slight (although that may just be the director's talented sleight of hand, making complicated themes go down smoothly).