Over rated and full of missed opportunities

simonvcolley

This film didn't really know what it was. It was slow and despite its length undeveloped, punctuated with subplots that went nowhere.

The idea of the spirits of our ancestors could have been developed to provide a neat twist at the end. Imagine if the mother had really turned out to be a ghost and just disappeared to the amazement of everyone concerned. As it is we are left with the absurd notion that after being assumed dead for years, the mother is going to slip back into society as if nothing had happened. Well that would fit in with the Almodovar's world where a convenient blind eye is turned in every direction.

The lack of any sense of contact with the real world in the form of the forces of law and order threatening to expose the truth meant that it failed to thrill and provide any moments of great suspense. Neither was there any sense of horror at the start of the film to justify the events that followed.

The guy who shows up to buy the restaurant is written out in less than a minute. The young man from the film crew who is attracted to miss Cruz is dismissed. She buys rope and tape and a shovel and attracts no suspicion. The visitor who notices blood on her neck accepts her dismissal that it's down to women's problems as though it's the most natural thing in the world. The line is funny but this film is not a comedy unless in its absurdity. So cut the scenes. This film is littered with meaningless red herrings that drag it out to its ultimate death.

So why cast Penelope Cruz? Her attractiveness is irrelevant to the plot. If her beauty had been used to draw attention to her when she needed to be invisible and unhindered in her actions it might have been put to good use. In the end she's only there to attract the punters through the door.

And where is the emotion in this film, the angst and guilt that Cruz's daughter must have felt, especially on finding out that the man she had killed was not her father. Like another reviewer I am amazed that a film that touches on such powerful and emotive issues should leave me so unemotionally affected.

And finally that poster. The 60's flowers? Sorry as a graphic designer I have to say it was way off the mark, and don't accuse me of judging a book by its cover.

score 3/10

simonvcolley 23 September 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1481546/