Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.
The take
This is the latest Oscar-nominated movie by Spain's highest-regarded director, Pedro Almodóvar. It's his most personal work to date, being a slightly fictionalized account of his youth and then the last couple of years. He is mostly portrayed by Antonio Banderas, who was also nominated for an Oscar for this role; while another star performance comes from Penélope Cruz who plays his mother in the flashback scenes. Pain and Glory is about life in the arts: how a tormented artistic personality is formed, the days of focusing on work over relationships, and dealing with the consequences later in life. It begs the question: in Almodóvar's life, was the glory that got him to making as great of a movie as this one worth the pain?
I usually love Almodovar but this one was a miss. Even the great ones miss. The story is full of gaps, the movie is monotonous and slow. Too much dialogue too.
UP NEXT
UP NEXT
UP NEXT
More like this in
The Guilty (2018)
A minimalist, razor-sharp thriller that will have you gasping for air.
9.0
Breaking the Waves (1996)
Lars von Trier breaks his rules in the tearjerking first film of the Golden Heart trilogy
8.1
Padre Pio (2023)
A daring biopic that has all the legacy marks of great American indie cinema
7.8
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)
A star-studded and riveting legal drama with a blockbuster feel.
8.1
Lust, Caution (2007)
A wartime spy falls for a collaborator in this erotic espionage drama
7.3
Forgotten Love (2023)
The stunning third take of the classic Polish pre-war melodrama
7.7
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023)
A cynical, but terribly honest portrait of the indignity of modern life
7.9
System Crasher (2019)
A tale of trauma and one of the most talked about movies on Netflix in 2020.
9.0
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Shyamalan meets Black Mirror in this hugely entertaining, visually inventive apocalyptic thriller with a killer ending
8.2
Problemista (2024)
Dark, weird, poignant, and funny, this debut feature by Los Espookys star Julio Torres is a modern parable of the American Dream