Volver

 1.5/4

Starring: Penelope Cruz, Yohana Cobo, Lola Duenas, Blanca Portillo, Carmen Maura, Antonio de la Torre, Chus Lampreave

Rated R for Some Sexual Content and Language

A thought continued to run through my mind as I watched "Volver," the 2006 film from acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar: who cares?

I didn't.  This is a melodrama about people who meant nothing to me.  It could have been a story of some dramatic charge if I gave a damn about the people in it, but despite some fine acting, I didn't.  I'm not sure why I cared so little.  Maybe the characters are half-developed.  Maybe the film is so convoluted that there needs to be an evolving chart of who knows what at what time.  And how they relate to each other.  Maybe it's because the film never effectively straddles the line between hard-hitting drama and farce.

Raimunda (Cruz) is a young woman trying to make ends meet for her teenage daughter Paula (Cobo) and loutish husband Pack (de la Torre).  It isn't going well.  Her aunt Paula (Lampreavea) has just died, and her daughter has killed Paco in self-defense after he drunkenly attempts to assault her.  Then her sister Sole (Duenas) is visited by her mother Irene (Maura), who has been dead for a few years, and has come back to help her daughters.

There are two ways to deal with this material: seriously or satirically.  Almodovar tries to do both and it doesn't work.  Perhaps he was trying to make a tragicomedy, but trying is different from succeeding.  I never fully bonded with the characters or their predicament.  As a result, I spent the majority of the film wondering how the movie seemed to go on while the clock seemed to stand still.

Penelope Cruz is the star of this film and what little dramatic energy the film has comes largely from her.  An impressive accomplishment to be sure, considering how sloppily Raimunda is written.  She is a fiery woman, but has curious lapses in judgement for no apparent reason.  For example, after she comes home to find Paco stabbed to death, her daughter explains that he tried to rape her and she killed him in self-defense.  What does she do?  She covers it up instead of calling the cops like any sane person.  She also lies or hides facts from people for reasons that are never made clear.  And when Irene appears to Sole, why do they both keep the fact that her ghost has come back from the netherworld from Raimunda for three quarters of the movie?  Because Almodovar wants some would-be farce in his film?

Cruz is ravishing in the role, and she is helped by a solid supporting cast.  But they have such thinly developed characters that it is impossible to care about them.  Carmen Maura has some nice scenes as the mother, although they don't come until the end.  For the most part, she's forced to act like she is in a sitcom: rushing from room to room or hiding under the bed to avoid Raimunda while offering advice that could have been coined from Hallmark greeting cards to Paula and Sole.

The bottom line is that this movie doesn't work.  I'll give Almodovar points for his attempt to do something unique, but boy was I bored while watching this movie.