Broken Embraces

a must see, love this movie so much 🩷

Well done!

About 40 minutes into it all the players, past and present, came together then it took off with Cruz as the love interest of both the rich guy and the producer. But then the movie slowed down for me at the end with the re-shooting of Mateo's botched film. That scene felt off-key compared to the vibe of the rest of the movie. It was like a comedy sketch tacked on the end of a drama/thriller. Wierd. That ending could have been left off with the movie concluding shortly after showing how Mateo got blind and the "confession" of his assistant.

There has not been a film made by the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar that I have not seen yet. His latest film "Broken Embraces" has beautiful Penelope Cruz in a lead female role that she carries on well as always. Although the story is unique, it definitely is a typical Almodovar movie in which he employs many of his ideas from the previous films. Homosexuality, obsessive love, revenge and femme fatale are themes his fans will recognise quickly throughout the film.This is a story of two people who loved each other deeply and sincerely. Power, money and possesiveness got in a way of them being together and like most doomed relationships, this one was not to last. The mere impossibility of such love to exist makes this story so lovely and touching.Must see movie, regardless if this is the first film by this director you have ever seen, or one out of many.

Well acted, very creative & interesting plot.

"Broken Embraces" marks Almodovar's first self homage, moving from the overwrought melodramas of Douglas Sirk to the equally over-the-top telenovella style of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", quoted here as a film within a film. Starring Penelope Cruz, the director's resident muse, in a performance of dazzling physical beauty and deeply wrought emotionalism, Almodovar's film visually links her to both Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, in the process making the case for Cruz as one of this point in film history's reigning icons.Beginning with the positioning of a blinded filmmaker as his main character, Almodovar explores the themes of filmmaking, betrayal and parent/child relationships with vigor and imagination. After shout-outs to both Bunuel and Hitchcock, "Embraces" concludes with a son serving as his blinded father's eyes and father, mother and son working together to redeem both a family and a film. This is a filmmaker's and a film viewer's dream vision.

My first exposure to Pedro Almodóvar was "Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown" back in 1988. I instantly became an Almodóvar fan.I was delighted to watch "Broken Embraces", although it did seem to get off to a slow start. And I was very delighted to see all the "call backs" to "Women On The Verge" in this film. From his signature "primary colors" sets to outright re-enactments of certain scenes in "Women", it was great acting and a lot of fun.

I couldn't play the bluray because it says that I needed to have a player B to play. So I returned it. I will order DVD next time.

I saw this movie around the time it was first released and thought it was just brilliant back then. Seeing it again all these years later, and I still absolutely LOVE this wonderful film. A powerful love story, but with twists and turns. A moving story with real people and love at first sight.

Destins croisés...multiples bonds dans le temps où l'on se perd un peu mais l'intrigue tient bien la route et c'est le principal !

I bought a copy of this DVD as, having watched it as one of my Lovefilm titles, knew I would want to enjoy it more than once and be able to share it with others. Superbly directed and a marvellous performance from Penelope Cruz as always! Fabulous location too - an unexpected bonus to revisit a great island................we absolutely loved this movie!

I've been stocking up on great films lately and saving them for long winter days and I know I'm going to be entertained. Working with his muse Penelope Cruz........I know it's going to be good. Writing and directing his work, there aren't all that many these days who can do that and do it as well. I'm really looking forward to watching it. His work is unlike anyone else's. Total original.

Broken Embraces should perhaps be one of Almodovar's best films, given his rapport with Penelope Cruz and the fact that it is so much about filmmaking itself. It also stars two outstanding actors in their biggest roles for him: Blanca Portillo and Lluis Homar. Both give enormous pleasure, and seem to give so much of themselves to the parts. Always one to think of his actors, Almodovar seems to give them dimensions that remained untapped in other films, so that Portillo, who was childless and unpartnered in Volver, here is primarily defined as a mother, perhaps. She is absolutely wonderful, and towards the end becomes the emotional centre of the film. Homar, likewise, was very good as the paedophile ex-priest in Bad Education, but here gets the plum romantic role, cavorting with Penelope in wigs of every shade (Penelope, that is). As usual, the film has a complicated plot, essentially going between two time bands, 1994 and 2008. It tells of the rise of Lena (Cruz) as an actress, her involvement with a rich industrialist film producer, her affair with a film director (Homar) and unhappy consequences of the love triangle. Portillo plays his assistant, and has a son called Diego who does a lot of listening in the film, convincingly because he is a sensitive lad. The problem is that the initial relationship is never convincing from Lena's point of view, and everything that follows feels a bit too much like something worked out on paper. Perhaps it is too late by the time the real love story kicks in, but it fails to deliver the emotional charge it might. This leaves the filmmaking strand to carry the emotional weight towards the end of the film, but it is too late to save Almodovar's film, really - it feels like film fragments without a proper centre. At the end we see part of the film that had been shot years before, and it is an amusing reworking of Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, with the wonderful Carmen Machi taking the role of the fragile friend involved with the terrorist, but giving it a different style altogether. This was hilarious. Visually the film is as arresting as ever, one section being shot on Lanzarote, mirroring the darkness of what happens, and there is one particularly memorable image pulling away to reveal lots of torn up pieces of photographs. This could be a metaphor for the film itself, but Almodovar hasn't quite been able to cover over the joins.