Art House Ghost Story

Volver. Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, and
Blanca Portillo star in a film written and directed by Pedro
Almodóvar.

Reviewed by Josef Woodard

Among the many pleasures woven into the latest Pedro
Almodóvar-directed feast are a few familiar Almodóvaran traits. The
Spanish auteur has an uncanny knack for telling a story with his
signature blend of cinematic panache, cheeky irreverence, and a
romantic glow. He knows the secret passageway into the female
psyche (or so it seems from this non-female’s perspective), and
Penélope Cruz is a much finer actress than her sometimes middling
Hollywood filmography allows her to show.

In Volver, Cruz — who last worked with Almodóvar in 1999’s All
About My Mother — is much more than a pretty face, although she
certainly possesses that. As the character Raimunda, she is a
wonder to behold, a woman caught between tangled generational
lines, would-be ghosts, and the thorny prospect of how to dispose
of a pesky corpse (a sleazy male, of course). Along the way, she
also runs a restaurant, squatter-style, gamely runs interference
between her sister and mother, and seductively sings the title
song.