Broken Embraces

Between this film and the upcoming musical Nine, Cruz' star has never shone more brightly. Whatever the price of today's ticket, proclaims Kimberly Gadette, watching her light up the screen is worth every penny.

The director/muse relationship reaches as far back as the birth of cinema itself. From its earliest days of D.W. Griffith and Lillian Gish, such teams come to mind as: Josef Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich; George Cukor and Katherine Hepburn; Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullman; and Alfred Hitchcock and an assortment of cool blondes (Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, Eva Marie Saint). Given today's film production model, where anything from shoestring indies to bloated studio epics is fair game, where studio bosses no longer link directors to their contract stars, the once-storied director/muse relationship is an anomaly. And yet some male pairings are still going strong: Scorsese and De Niro/DiCaprio; Tim Burton and Johnny Depp; Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. But for the classic auteur/female muse, we can look to Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz in their fourth film together, Broken Embraces.

The movie tells a fragmented story of a writer/director who is himself fractured. Fourteen years prior, he was a successful filmmaker named Matteo (Lluís Homar) who'd fallen for his budding female star Lena (Penélope Cruz). However, in the film's current timeframe, he's a blind writer who has renamed himself Harry Caine. He may be blind, but Harry can still hook up with a knockout of a young woman in the middle of the day by merely looking like he needs help crossing the street. Which is in itself a mystery; he isn't famous or handsome, doesn't appear to have money and is, at heart, a dullard. How he seduces the girl without buying her so much as a cup of coffee is a mystery for the likes of Hitchcock – who, coincidentally, Almodóvar borrows liberally from in this latest work.

And so begins many threads of a sloppy story that begs for a smart edit.

We get a gay, vengeful son who wants to write a screenplay with Harry all about a gay, vengeful son who's been mistreated; meanwhile Harry discusses writing a script about a kind son who's also been mistreated – by Arthur Miller, no less. (Perhaps that provided Almodóvar with the excuse he needed to briefly throw a Marilyn Monroe platinum wig on to his leading lady.) One more idea, a comedic vampire script, is discussed with yet another writing partner though this, too, leads nowhere.

Once Cruz enters the picture, the story finally settles down, relating a story from years back about a promising actress, her rich, controlling older lover (aren't they all?), and the brilliant, artistic life that she and her director might have created together. If only ...

Almodóvar gives the film over to Cruz utterly and completely, with as much seemingly slavish adoration as the fictional auteur Matteo/Harry. Actually – more. With gloriously noir production design, he sculpts her scenes around her breathless beauty and her radiant talent, allowing us to see the sexpot, the comedienne, the grieving daughter, the woman in love and the fierce goddess, scornful of the man she betrays. Plain and simple, it's a Cruz-fest.

But the story, as well as the other actors, suffer from Almodóvar's inattention. Blanca Portillo as Harry's longtime production manager/agent Judit plays her part with a fine, understated power – until her big confessional scene. The scene turns into amateur night in Madrid, her nervous tics and swilling of drinks completely over the top. Has director Almodóvar suddenly become as blind as his own film's filmmaker? He brings in a temperamental son, Rubén Ochandiano's Ray X (or, obviously, x-ray, referring to the glowering character whose ever-grinding camera is an extension of himself, his eye augmented by the lens' penetrating vision that sees into the very bones of the philanderers who surround him). Note: a little less glower needed here.

But the film's greatest weakness is its formless male lead, a pale shadow in Cruz's vibrant presence. Even the older lover Martel (José Luis Gómez) has a stronger authority onscreen. Though the plot trips on itself, and runs on with an unnecessarily protracted ending, it is with the character of Matteo/Harry that Almodóvar makes the biggest misstep. If Cruz had had a worthy partner, the screen would have fairly sizzled with heat. Instead, Almodóvar seems to be acting the jealous lover himself, unable to share the actress with another actor who could have been a viable counterpart.

Rather than a brilliant film with two scintillating characters driving the drama, we end up with Cruz and, when she's not onscreen, the absence of Cruz. A black, noirish hole.

So much for auteur/muse relationships that imbue the project with an extra spark. In this case, maybe it's time for couples therapy.

Rating on a scale of 5 curative kisses: 3

Release date: US: 11 December 2009
Directed and written by: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, José Luis Gómez, Rubén Ochandiano, Tamar Novas, Ángela Molina, Carmen Machi
Rating: US = R; UK = 15
Running time: 127 minutes