Pedro Almodóvar’s drama about an ailing filmmaker is patient, tender and worth the time, chiefly for Antonio Banderas’s restrained performance. The opening drifts, and the self-examination could be tougher, but its affection for people gets through.
Pain and Glory is a moving drama about an ageing director whose ill health has made work difficult and the past hard to leave alone. Pedro Almodóvar gives this material time, sometimes more than it needs, but Antonio Banderas makes the patience worthwhile. His Salvador Mallo is depressed, physically uncomfortable and uncertain what remains of his ability to make films. It could become an extended request for sympathy. The performance keeps Salvador interesting even when he seems reluctant to be interested in anything himself.
Antonio Banderas plays the exhaustion without making every moment a demonstration of it. We were moved by his quietness in the conversations about Salvador’s past, because he lets us see how much another person’s presence asks of him. There is enough pride in the performance to keep the character from becoming merely pitiable, and enough vulnerability to make that pride look hard to maintain. We keep watching his face even when the film gives him little outwardly to do.
Cinematographer José Luis Alcaine keeps the colours rich even while Salvador struggles with illness, giving us something beyond another image of a man in decline. Antxón Gómez’s production design includes a recreation of Pedro Almodóvar’s flat, and the carefully arranged surroundings make Salvador’s retreat look unusually inviting. The rooms can seem too comfortable for the distress he describes. That is a useful complication in a film which could otherwise treat its protagonist’s unhappiness as the only thing worth looking at.
Teresa Font’s editing makes the passages between recollection and the present easy to follow, without hurrying us through either. The difficulty is that the early stretches establish Salvador’s weariness more effectively than they give the film anywhere to go. Alberto Iglesias’s score suits the reflective mood, although we sometimes wanted less encouragement to linger over Salvador’s sadness. The episodes remain clear throughout, even when the film is slow to give us a reason to follow one with another.
Penélope Cruz brings welcome directness to Jacinta, and the childhood material gives the film people to think about beyond the adult Salvador. She helps these recollections feel populated by people with lives of their own, even though we are seeing them through his memory. Her performance has a welcome matter-of-fact quality; she does not seem to be waiting for Salvador to decide what her place in his life means. That gives these passages more energy than the stretches spent attending to his ailments.
Films about filmmakers can assume an interest in the profession that the rest of us may not share. This one gives us physical discomfort, remembered relationships and the difficulty of imagining useful work ahead, none of which requires a knowledge of its director’s life. We do wish the writing sometimes pushed harder against Salvador’s account of himself. The film is generous to him, and there are stretches where a little less solicitude would have made him more interesting.
At 114 minutes, it asks for an unhurried evening, and the slow beginning is a real caveat. We recommend it warmly for Antonio Banderas, whose restraint makes Salvador worth spending time with even when his thoughts keep returning to himself. Give it time, but do not expect Salvador to repay the attention with much bustle.
