Volver

Starring: Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenas, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave

Written by: Pedro Almodovar

Directed by: Pedro Almodovar

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Rated: R

. . . And then, completely without warning, Volver, which opened with all the earmarks of a syrupy European soap opera, takes on the characteristiscs of a dark, pseudo-Hitchcockian post-homicidal, corpse disposal comedy. But exactly how it had gotten there from its opening credits is a bit of mystery playfully crafted by writer/director Pedro Almodovar.

One person who is secretly living is thought to be dead, while another thought to be alive is secretly dead and hidden. Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, Blow) stars as Raimunda – a mother living in Madrid with her daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) and her soon-to-be late husband Paco (Antonio de la Torre). Raimunda and her sister Sole (Lola Duenas) lose their parents in a fire in their hometown village of La Mancha, yet their late mother Irene (Carmen Maura) appears temporally to provide comfort and aid in difficult circumstances.

At the center of the film, Cruz puts in a sophisticated performance as a woman struggling to get by. When the opportunity presents itself for her to take control of a restaurant for the benefit of a film crew, her performance draws the viewer into her ambition with the force of considerable charisma. Whether or not it’s actually the case, it seems as though Cruz has never really been given the challenge of complexity in a film. She’s always worked in simplicity, in the periphery, even when she’s given a central role. Here we see her personality fill a large role with balanced elegance.

In the role of Raimunda’s daughter, 21-year-old Yohana Cobo lends an intricate complexity to the character that reveals itself fully when she shows her mother the corpse. You can see the confusion and trauma tumbling around in her head even though she wants to remain as calm as possible.

Carmen Maura is Raimunda and Sole’s mysteriously animate mother. She is serene and honorable even as she hides from the world around her. Whether she’s helping out her daughter by pretending to be a Russian immigrant or surfacing from the trunk of a tiny car, Maura has an aura of respectability that outshines the apparent unseemliness of any situation.

While individual scenes and performances in Volver are exquisite, the film gets bogged down in some of the dialogue. So much is spoken of in exposition. We find out about these characters’ past largely in what they say to each other. For those in the audience who don’t speak Spanish, this means reading about much of the plot’s defining machinery in subtitles, a little unsatisfying for a film that seems to aspire to more than the soap opera from which it seems to be evolving. . . VS