Pain and Glory (2019)

Pain and Glory (2019)

Pedro Almodóvar's life story

The Very Best

8.7

Movie

Spain
Spanish
Drama
2019
PEDRO ALMODÓVAR
Agustín Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia
114 min

What it's about

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?

Comments

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.

Add a comment

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

The Guilty (2018)

A minimalist, razor-sharp thriller that will have you gasping for air.

9.0

The Novelist’s Film (2022)

A deeply meaningful and uncommonly tender high point in director Hong Sang-soo's prolific career

8.8

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

A star-studded and riveting legal drama with a blockbuster feel.

8.1

Forgotten Love (2023)

The stunning third take of the classic Polish pre-war melodrama

7.7

The Novice (2021)

An occasionally overwhelming sensory experience about obsession, led by a ferocious lead actress

7.4

Art of Love (2024)

An underwhelming heist romance with all of the style but none of the thrills

5.7

System Crasher (2019)

A tale of trauma and one of the most talked about movies on Netflix in 2020.

9.0

The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon (2023)

A dying criminal kills to be the most wanted in this Taiwanese Western-esque gangster drama

7.5

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Shyamalan meets Black Mirror in this hugely entertaining, visually inventive apocalyptic thriller with a killer ending

8.2

All of Us Strangers (2023)

A devastating queer drama that explores the nature of grief and love through a uniquely supernatural lens

8.8

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw logo

© 2024 agoodmovietowatch, all rights reserved.