A good movie

I have been following Pedro Almodovar’s career for maybe 30 years so, of course, I was quite interested in his first full-length feature (before that, he also did a few shorts in English, to practice, but I haven’t seen these). To be honest, I needed a few mins to adjust myself to the fact that the characters wouldn’t be speaking Spanish as everything else from the production design and the music felt so like some Almodovar stuff. Well, I did think it was a decent watch but, to be honest, it wasn’t one of his best movies though. Obviously, the cool thing was to see him working with some of the best English-speaking actresses in the world, Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, and as long as the movie was focusing on them, it was pretty much rock-solid. Indeed, you don’t really get to know about their past together (I actually thought at first that they were at some point a lesbian couple which wasn’t the case at all after all), but they had some instant chemistry together which was really nice to see. Unfortunately, when he did try to wander somewhere else, especially with anything with a more direct link with the US culture, he didn’t fair so well, I’m afraid. I mean, if you’re going to mention the Vietnam war, a massive traumatic experience for the American people, and do nothing interesting with it, except using it as the reason why a couple didn’t work out, then you should maybe restrain yourself. There was also a rather weak scene involving a burning house which felt like a complete failed attempt to show the American mid-West. I think it was also a mistake to bring back Tilda Swinton to play the daughter because it felt like an unnecessary gimmick, especially since it was only for 5 mins. Anyway, to conclude, even an average Almodovar is still pretty damned good and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in the work of the Spanish master.

7/10