Review: 'Volver,' Cruz headed for Oscar bids

Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Starring: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave

Rated: R

Director Pedro Almodóvar is 57. He grew up in Gen. Franco’s Spain and is a gay man. This brief bio is pertinent because there’s not a movie director who loves and understands female characters better than Almodóvar.

His affinity for the women who inhabit his films, and the actresses who play them, is readily apparent in every piece he’s made from his American breakthrough, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” to “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” “Talk to Her,” and “All About My Mother.”

His latest film, “Volver” (which translated in Spanish is “return”) is his most sumptuous, personal and completely engaging work to date.

It’s a piece that will surely go a long way to change the public’s perception of leading lady Penélope Cruz. She can’t help it if she’s one of the most drop-dead beautiful women on the planet. She’s also a wonderfully talented performer. She proves it in this role, which will see her nominated for a best actress Oscar. No one will even begin to argue should she win.

“Volver” is, at heart, a ghost story. It’s a ghost story unlike any other you may have seen. It makes us see that being a ghost doesn’t necessarily imply physical death. There are many ways to step outside of “normal existence” and haunt the world of those who believe they are the only ones “living.”

Raimunda (Cruz) and her sister, Sole (Lola Duenas), are still among the living, and as the film opens, they are tidying up their parents’ gravesites at a La Mancha cemetery. Mom and dad died in bed when their house caught on fire a few years back – but there are many strange tales surrounding the circumstances of the deaths.

Raimunda’s aunt, by all accounts a victim of dementia, is under the impression that the girls’ mother has been living with her since the night of the “deaths.” The people in the village are too nice to take issue with this, and they let the woman believe what she will.

Sole gets the real story early on. Only Raimunda remains clueless. The mom moves in with Sole, who runs a beauty parlor out of her apartment. Sole passes mom off as a Russian immigrant hairdresser. None of Sole’s clients knew the mom, so disguising her is easy enough. It’s only when Raimunda comes to visit that things get a bit awkward. Mum has to hide under the bed to keep from being discovered by her oldest daughter.

While this may sound dangerously close to an episode of “I Love Lucy,” Almodóvar manages to pull off the juggling act with great finesse.

And there is much more juggling to be done.

The matriarch of the family may not be dead, but another member of Raimunda’s circle is decidedly so. Her efforts in the disposal of the body coincide with her honest attempts to make a go at surreptitiously operating a vacant café.

The place belongs to a friend; Raimunda merely has the keys to enable prospective buyers a chance to view it.

A film crew has moved into town with an extensive calendar and needs a regular place to eat, drink, be merry and unwind. Raimunda pounces on the opportunity, despite the other complications in her life. She’s a survivor, and life is more important to her than death, whether it’s real or imagined.

As noted, Almodóvar is a “women’s” director. There are few male characters in “Volver,” so it doesn’t pose a threat to sweep all the major categories of the Oscars. But if it wins for screenplay, direction, film, leading actress, supporting actress and cinematography, there won’t be any arguments from this corner.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.