Julieta
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Talent: Adriana Ugarte, Rossy de Palma, Emma Suárez, Michelle Jenner
Release Date: 26th August
The latest film from Pedro Almodóvar, Julieta, sees a middle-aged widower take stock of her life and confront the mistakes of her past. If that description sounds like the pitch that greenlit a thousand weepies, then, it probably is. Almodóvar has found his greatest success in making ‘women’s pictures’ of one kind or another. Even when his films involve debauchery and sadomasochism, they’re still working through the same old, time-tested melodrama as a Joan Crawford or Lana Turner picture. Mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, the lies they tell, the secrets they keep, the grudges they hold and so on.
Julieta is softer than other entries in Almodóvar’s filmography but it’s just as rich. We feel as though every detail is composed just so; more than in any other film, no detail feels incidental. The two leads, Julieta young and old, tug at our heartstrings throughout. It’s a beautiful film about a messy life.
Words: Luke Maxwell
