11/50

Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature film in English

Scenario

Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation. IMDb editor Arno Kazarian presents brief summaries of the 12 films he has screened at the New York Film Festival since 2024, including Anora and the dangerous, strangely erotic Misericordia.

Appeared in The 7PM Project: September 8, 2024, episode (2024)

Almodóvar’s cinematic worlds have always been interesting to inhabit, and his first English-language film is no exception, as all parts of the art world are beautifully present and presented: literature is readable (Joyce), books are never lacking. However, the architecture, the furniture, the paintings, the decor, all refer to an intellectually demanding world that every sophisticated being in this world would love to be a part of. But despite the constant references to works of art, the film feels empty and intellectually and emotionally unengaging.

For example, Swinton is a former war correspondent, but that never adds an interesting note to the film

Iglesias’s music is beautiful, the opening credits are quintessential Almodóvar, and Moore and Swinton are two of the most amazing actresses in the world, but the script is too simple to go beyond simple mise-en-scène. The same goes for Moore, who is a writer, but here almost nothing is done with that element. Another interesting part of the story is that Swinton seems to manipulate Moore into her guilt and kindness, but she is also too underdeveloped.

Overall, Almodóvar’s direction of Moore and Swinton is too absent, so it’s hard to understand what he wants from them

(See how Fincher, in a small role as Swinton in last year’s The Killer , fits the film perfectly, paying close attention to body movement and diction.) This is where characters and stories from the past come and go, just as they do in real life, but that doesn’t make for compelling viewing. Turturro (Almodóvar?) is particularly helpless in this film, with not only uninteresting lines but also a character with a simplistic political message and worldview. This is a film in which all the parts do their jobs relatively well, but the sum of it all is disappointing, and unfortunately the director is to blame.

The film harks back to Bergman’s Persona , but is a shadow of that work of art

In Pain and Glory , he boldly foregrounded his own pain, but like Woody Allen, his great inspiration has clearly run dry, and his films are merely copies and abstractions of earlier ideas. (Also, the minute-long trailer includes the entire film.) And one final note: the fact that the film won the Golden Lion at Venice this year is not only a testament to how weak the 2024 edition of the festival was, but, as usual, and the sum of the jury, chaired this time by Huppert: First prize for a film about a woman who wants to be euthanized, Second prize for a woman torn apart by war, love and her community, and Third prize for a woman fighting for abortion. Maybe it would be a good idea to have directors chair the jury, not actors and actresses, so that the best film could win the biggest prize (Brutalism).