In a sentencePenélope Cruz makes keeping quiet look exhausting
Motherhood connects the lives of Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit), while family secrets complicate their relationship. Their story also involves Teresa (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón). Janis faces deception and its consequences as questions of care and responsibility become entangled with the search for personal truth. The families’ private lives unfold against the unresolved legacy of the Spanish Civil War, with Spain’s past continuing to shape the present. The women contend with loss, difficult loyalties and the things people choose not to tell one another.
Plays from YouTube when you press play; nothing loads from them until then.
Pedro Almodóvar’s drama of motherhood and Spain’s past is warm, moving and occasionally untidy. The middle drifts, but Penélope Cruz makes Janis’s distress difficult to dismiss.
Parallel Mothers is a moving, occasionally untidy melodrama, and we recommend it for the women at its centre. Pedro Almodóvar brings motherhood and family secrecy into contact with the unresolved damage of the Spanish Civil War. That is a considerable amount for one drama to carry, and the two stories do not always sit comfortably together. What keeps the film persuasive is Penélope Cruz, who makes Janis worth attending to even when the plotting begins to feel more complicated than it needs to be.
The screenplay gives Janis plenty to endure, but Penélope Cruz never treats suffering as an automatic claim on our sympathy. We were moved by how quietly she plays devastation, particularly in the wordless exchanges between the leads. She lets us see the effort of containing distress without making every reaction a demand to be noticed. Milena Smit, as Ana, has the presence to make those exchanges feel shared. The attention passes between the women, and neither performance requires a speech to make the relationship matter.
Pedro Almodóvar’s screenplay has the confidence to use the contrivances of melodrama without apologising for them. A few disclosures are easy to anticipate, but knowing roughly where a story is going does not make the people in it less interesting. The warmth between the women helps us accept developments that might otherwise seem merely convenient, because their responses remain believable even when their circumstances strain belief. There is pleasure in watching a film take complicated feelings seriously without requiring everybody to behave sensibly.
Antxón Gómez’s vivid décor gives the film much of its immediate appeal, with the surroundings contributing to the heightened mood. José Luis Alcaine’s cinematography makes that visual richness pleasurable without allowing it to overwhelm the performances. The women’s faces still hold our attention, which matters in a drama where so much is happening without words. The emphatic surroundings also make the actors’ restraint effective: nothing requires them to match the décor, and their quiet exchanges benefit from that freedom.
Teresa Font’s editing is less successful at maintaining the pull of the story through the middle section. Some passages take longer than their emotional weight warrants, and the film begins to seem as though it is waiting for its next disclosure. Alberto Iglesias’s score helps, giving the drama an insistence that suits the material, although music cannot entirely repair the loss of pace. At 123 minutes, there is room for these relationships to develop, but a little less time spent arranging their complications would have helped.
The Spanish Civil War strand gives the family drama a seriousness that extends beyond the immediate troubles of Janis and Ana. Pedro Almodóvar does not always make the connection feel natural, but his concern with how old harm continues to affect families belongs here. His sympathy for the women keeps the history from becoming merely a lesson delivered over their heads, even when the shifts between the stories feel awkward. Leave time afterwards for an argument about what people owe one another.
Most critics warmly receive Parallel Mothers, praising Almodóvar’s emotionally direct melodrama and its connection between motherhood and Spain’s unresolved Civil War history. Penélope Cruz attracts the clearest agreement: the reviews repeatedly credit her with grounding the story’s more extravagant turns through quiet intensity, empathy and emotional complexity. Praise also gathers around the women’s relationships, the vivid visual design and the film’s treatment of loss and remembrance, with many finding its political concerns inseparable from its personal stories.
The spread is chiefly one of enthusiasm rather than approval versus rejection, with reservations concentrated on cohesion, pacing and familiarity. Empire finds the middle less gripping, while The Hollywood Reporter notes predictable disclosures but still finds the drama satisfying. Eye for Film is less persuaded by the handling of history, finding it tonally weaker, though it praises Milena Smit and José Luis Alcaine’s cinematography; most critics regard the historical dimension as a strength.
Calhoun presents the film as a haunting, resonant exploration of Spain’s past and present. He singles out Penélope Cruz’s magnificent performance.
Read the full review →Jenkins regards the film as one of Almodóvar’s finest, praising its emotional depth and assured filmmaking. He especially singles out Penélope Cruz’s performance as extraordinary and emotionally powerful.
Read the full review →Chang gives the film a strongly admiring verdict, praising how Almodóvar intertwines motherhood with the legacy of the Spanish Civil War. He singles out Penélope Cruz’s radiant, complex performance as the story’s emotional center.
Read the full review →Latif calls the film an outstanding melodrama and praises the trust between Almodóvar and Cruz. Cruz’s performance is singled out for its ability to convey Janis’s devastation with quiet intensity.
Read the full review →Brody finds the film a breathless, politically urgent melodrama whose personal stories make historical memory essential. He especially praises Penélope Cruz’s focused performance and Almodóvar’s vivid, documentary-like treatment of the mass-grave excavation.
Read the full review →Gleiberman finds the film moving and emotionally grounded, calling it Almodóvar’s best since All About My Mother. He praises its transporting final unification of motherhood’s life force with the history of Franco-era atrocities.
Read the full review →
Secrets & LiesFamily revelations made believable by performances that leave room for embarrassment and affection.
The Official StoryA mother’s questions open onto a country’s refusal to face its past.
Like Father, Like Son · not reviewed yetAnother searching family drama about what makes someone a parent.
IdaA quieter search through family history and the damage people leave unspoken.
Petite MamanMotherhood across generations, told with fewer complications and just as much tenderness.
