Julieta (2016)

Almodóvar’s tender melodrama is his best in a decade, a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love. The critic singles out the superb score and the dual performances of Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as Julieta.

The critic hails it as a spectacular return to form and astonishingly rich and bold in its staging, physicality, colour and direct tragedy, an extremely moving blend of Almodóvar’s female-centric vision with Alice Munro’s themes of loss. It notes the austere, concentrated tragic story with few diversions yet remains intensely rewarding.

A profound and moving study of family, guilt, and growing old that ranks among Almodóvar’s best recent films. The dispatch highlights the director’s focus on loneliness, the passage of time, and a dark turn in his work adapted from Alice Munro stories.

The critic calls it a slick, stylish melodrama with an involving story and cracking cast, closer in spirit to All About My Mother than Almodóvar’s more frenetic earlier works. It highlights the strong characters, simple storytelling, visual brightness, bursts of humour, and Adriana Ugarte as a real find in the lead.

Almodóvar returns to his very best with a beautiful, quietly devastating portrait of a broken woman, marking a welcome return to neo-melodrama peaks after less successful recent films. The critic singles out the film's intimate, muted style and intricate form, including symbolic visuals and score, for delivering cumulative emotional power that only fully registers at the end.

Almodóvar returns to female-focused filmmaking with a sombre, ravishing study of grief, guilt and burden that is more buttoned-up than his earlier melodramas but ultimately extremely moving. The critic singles out the gradual piecing together of the story through flashbacks and the exquisite craft, including use of blood red and the score, for its cumulative power.

Almodóvar directs the melodrama like a tense thriller in a fascinating experiment that creates useful dissonance and leads to a powerfully open-ended, deeply moving conclusion with an unexpected wallop.

The critic calls it a radiant and absorbing melodrama of subdued mastery that confirms Almodóvar’s command of form and emotion through seamless time manipulation and expert performances, even if it lacks the grandeur of his greatest works.

Almodóvar's 20th feature returns the director to the world of women with an anxious, tantalising story of loss and grief adapted from Alice Munro stories, full of hints and omens. The critic singles out the luxurious slide into female neurosis and vibrant colour palette for creating an enigmatic, art-house natural that sustains fans.

Almodóvar crafts a sombre, supremely expressive reflection on love, tragedy and transformation by spinning three Alice Munro stories into a dense yet unified narrative of memory, loss and duality. The critic singles out the film's visual and symbolic richness, including the use of two actresses for the lead and expressive production design, for creating a tight, contemplative drama free of the director's usual comedy.

The critic finds the film scrupulous, compassionate and surprising in its handling of loss and abandonment through elegant restraint mixed with melodrama, though it does not always fully communicate the gravity of its feelings.

Almodóvar’s most conventional movie, an inoffensively well-acted melodrama with intelligent observations but one that plods without enough zest or a cohesive center. The director plays it too safe.

The critic sees it as a sincere but relatively tame and less entertaining drama that returns to female-centric storytelling without achieving the director’s strongest or most flamboyant results, though the two-actress casting and visual style are effective.

The object-oriented approach blocks deeper emotional access, muting the story’s effect with gothic tropes and soap-operatic excess despite visual potency and empathy. Julieta remains an emblematic figure rather than a fully realized character.

The film is a flat and fragmentary drama, a tie-me-downer of a pastiche with a meandering script, unresolved mysteries, and quizzically motivated characters. It offers solid craft contributions and a classy cast but lacks freshness or passion.

Almodóvar returns to familiar female territory with a classic melodrama adapted from Alice Munro stories. The director shows new confidence and mastery in exploring the female psyche through the story of a mother and daughter dealing with grief.

The critic finds the film an engaging yet uneven melodrama that loses pace and clarity after an early switch in its central character's age. The seamless visual transition between younger and older versions of Julieta is singled out for praise amid the story's issues with motivation and momentum.

The film feels like a work of maturity and empathy but is somewhat restrained and contained, with Almodóvar's style not fully matched by the material. It offers knotty pleasures in its verve and sorrowful observations on abandonment and usurpation, anchored by a strong performance.

The critic describes the film as a subdued, decorous version of Almodóvar that still stands out as weirder and more intriguing than most directors' work. It singles out the film's visually rapturous style and its meditation on parenthood and guilt for praise, while noting it lacks the director's usual high energy.

A gripping return to female-led melodrama with vibrant visuals and emotional revelations adapted from Alice Munro stories. The ending adds to the power of this sad but tremendously entertaining film despite some initial frustration.

Almodóvar rebounds with a relatively subdued but absorbing melodrama full of sex, intrigue, and regret, marked by a new gentleness. The director's vivid, hyper-real visual style and love of pulp storytelling are highlighted as strengths even as he tones down his usual outrageousness.

The film is visually splendid thanks to its sumptuous cinematography and bold colors but dramatically stunted and dreadfully dull. Its plodding mystery plot and derivative elements are singled out for complaint despite the director's signature aesthetic flair.