Rent Parallel Mothers (2021)

Engaging film spoilt by poor subtitles (white on white) - Parallel Mothers review by GP

Really engaging and interesting film but, thinking back through it, I don't think I've ever seen a film which raises and simply glosses over so many important issues. What spoilt the film was the small white subtitles on white background. This occurred throughout the film but , most annoyingly, at two really important points, that meant we had to rewind and stand next to the TV in order to read them. Come on film subtitle people, we want to watch world cinema, but make it more accessible to non native speaking audiences please.

Engaging melodrama if lacking depth - Parallel Mothers review by PD

The latest from Almodovar involves two intertwining thematic strands of motherhood and exhumed Spanish history. There are an awful lot of promising threads, but for me none of them are developed in much depth, although very strong performances from leads Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit do a lot to make the film engaging, with their expressive emotional range and controlled discipline through which they put over their director’s rather forced writing. Cruz's Janis bonds well with Smit's much younger Ana from the start: this is partly via their artistic natures, but also through the lack of paternal presences - their opening sequence is very effective as Janis’s boss at work, a surrogate mother figure, and Ana’s own single mother Teresa step into the maternity ward. The film definitely makes us feel the pain of women — in childbirth, in disappointment and in loss — intensely. Unfortunately, so much then happens from this point which strains credulity and only “works” in that sort of soap-opera world which is fine if you want gentle melodramatic escapism but is rather incongruous in a piece which (rightly) takes itself very seriously. Moreover, a sudden, third-act shift in their relationship throws the film right off balance because it suddenly seems to lose interest in the ramifications for its two main characters whom we've come to care about so much.

Nevertheless, the film is undeniably well-meaning: stemming from a sincere desire to address the most fraught aspect of his nation’s civic history whose aftermath produced almost 40 years of fascist rule, the film is successful in scanning the contemporary notion in Spain that its legacy and afterlife haven’t been properly examined; silence abounding as the country now enjoys its relative liberal prosperity.

Engaging - Parallel Mothers review by KD

The relationship between the two women is very affecting and their story engaging. The important story of the exhumation of the bodies of Spanish civil war victims feels as if it might have been better served as a separate film.