Pedro Almodóvar has a new film out this year. And that name had damn-well better sound familiar to my readers, given how much I gushed over his last film Pain And Glory, my favourite film of 2019 and one of the best films about filmmaking of the entire 2010s. But with that same enthusiasm I showed not that long ago, there’s a good chance that I’m just setting up whatever he has next to fail. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this film is still very, very good, but take my minor gripes to follow with a grain of salt, as I may have already spoilt myself when it comes to this guy at his best.
What Pain And Glory did for filmmaking and the creative process, Parallel Mothers seems to be aiming for the same level of depth and breadth of understanding with motherhood and modern femininity. And I specify ‘modern’ there because the film is bookended by scenes concerning a mass grave that dates to the Spanish Civil War, serving as the grimmer companion to the main plot’s juxtaposition of past and present, in particular when it comes to family and the possibility of reunion.
Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit as Janis and Ana respectively are the film’s main characters, the titular Parallel Mothers who share a hospital room as they both give birth. Janis the photographer is not only older but shown as fixating a lot on the past, partly to do with the aforementioned result of dictatorship but also in her connection with her immediate family. Whereas Ana, an adolescent mother struggling under the eye of her theatre-aspiring mother (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), has gone through some rough shit but just wants to press forward with her own life, both for herself and for her child.
The events that continue to bring these two women together definitely lean towards melodrama for a bit of it… okay, scratch that, for most of it, but the acting chops combined with the deft touch in Almodóvar’s writing manage to transcend the soap opera specifics of the plot. Along with maintaining his penchant for queer nuance in his characters, the way he details their respective positions as single mothers is at once resonant and lacking in pretence. My personal favourite bit of world-building in the script is with the detailing of Janis’ family, with her as the latest in a long line of single mothers, taking what is usually seen as a modern phenomenon and contextualising it as something that has been the norm for quite a while. Of course, the reason why it’s a norm isn’t solely due to the after-effects of war; the conflicting nature of maternal/paternal instincts is a large part of the equation as well.
However, while the film’s depiction of motherhood and femininity is very well-done, the plot itself has its issues. I once again can overlook the amount of sheer coincidence taking place here, but this time around, it feels like there are parts missing from the narrative, or at least aren’t given as much time to develop as they should. The pacing involves time-jumps in the story that gave me unfortunate flashbacks to the second half of The Next Best Thing (a far worse film about unconventional family dynamics), and with how bumpy the relationship between Janis and Ana can be, it can feel like it’s just brushing over what should be rather central moments in terms of overcoming what they’ve just been through. No spoilers, because these are still moments worth experiencing for one’s self, but it’s noticeable all the same.
But even with those minor niggles, that’s far from enough to make me dislike this film. Cruz and Smit are simply amazing as the central characters, the writing around them is Tully-levels of evocative in their depictions of modern motherhood, and while the dialogue can be a little exposition-heavy, it still tells a lot of truths about the interior and exterior forces that get in the way of what is considered the ‘traditional’ family unit. The lack of judgement on all fronts is quite refreshing as well, balancing out the instinct to nurture with the need to fulfil one’s own aspirations; even for how whacked-out the specifics can get, it stays nice and grounded, which itself is quite an accomplishment.
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