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Screen Scene: "Volver"

Guido Pellegrini (Contact)
Published: Friday, November 3, 2006

“Volver”

Director Pedro Almodóvar

Sony Pictures Classics

Halfway through the film “Volver” (“to return”), Raimunda, the low-class mother played by Penélope Cruz (“Blow”), sings a Flamenco rendition of an old tango song.

The scene is not superfluous nor is it intended to showcase Cruz’s latent musical powers (though it does). Rather, the lyrics to the song are telltale of Raimunda’s distress. Two lines in particular are especially revealing: “But the fleeing traveler, sooner or later must come to a halt.”

Raimunda is always fleeing and always moving, determinedly sprinting to accomplish one objective after another.

Occasionally she is forced to stop her frantic pace and reflect a bit on her life, at which point she usually breaks down and cries.

Yet despite all the crying and all the singing, the film is never morose. It is to director Pedro Almodóvar’s (“Talk to Her”) credit that “Volver” succeeds in combining the melancholy with the absurdly comical.

For instance, during a murder scene early in the film, Raimunda comes home one evening only to discover that her husband tried to rape her daughter and that, in self-defense, her daughter committed patricide. For some seconds, mother and daughter stare at each other with tearful eyes.

Then the film switches gears from tragic to darkly comic, and in the following scene we see Cruz nonchalantly wiping the blood with tissue paper as if only a bug had been squashed.

Not to worry; this murder is hardly a spoiler. It merely sparks the movement of the twisty and always entertaining plot – involving ghosts, freezers, rivers, film crews, terminal disease and corny television shows, to start.

The plot succeeds greatly in part to a great cast, including Carmen Maura (“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”) who returns to an Almodóvar film after a 17-year hiatus, Lola Dueñas of “The Sea Inside,” Blanca Portillo, and, of course, Cruz, who delivers a fantastic performance, switching from dry anger to sudden weeping with ease.

Yohana Cobo, who plays Raimunda’s daughter, is the cast’s weak link. When the camera turns to her, the film turns dull.

When one should show nuance, she bores, and when one should react, she, well, doesn’t.

Ultimately, the tonal shifts of the film are not always entirely successful. Wondering whether to laugh or cry can be an entertaining exercise, but as it lasts most of film, it is also quite tiring and at times disconcerting. Still, “Volver” is undoubtedly worth the effort.