Penélope Cruz is riveting as a woman with a horrid secret

The past cannot be escaped; it must be confronted. This is the low growl at the heart of Pedro Almodóvar’s deceptively breezy Parallel Mothers. Though a melodrama, there are few tears and little gnashing of teeth. The world of mid-2010’s Madrid is kept effervescent and pretty, with vibrant yellow accents in upper-class homes and gorgeous residents at every turn. But under the surface of the seemingly enchanted life of its fashion-photographer protagonist, there are terrible secrets and a mass grave, neither of which will be ignored. 

Writer/director Almodóvar reteams once more with recurring leading lady Penélope Cruz. She stars a Janis, a child-free “nearly 40” year-old woman, who loves her work in photography, has great friends, and treasured ties to a rural hometown where her great grandfather was executed and chucked in an unmarked grave by Franco fascists during the Spanish Civil War. So, when she’s photographing the headshot of an attractive forensic anthropologist Arturo (Israel Elejalde), Janis inquires if he might help her community unearth their dead for a proper burial. What begins as solemn business talk soon sparks a sophisticated flirtation. While Almodóvar’s signature camp is largely absent from this drama, the heralded provocateur does pepper in some sparks of humor. So, a passionate sex scene between the two hard-cuts abruptly to: EXT. MATERNITY WARD. 

Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Just like that, Janis is ballooned in pregnancy, walking the halls of the hospital with doe-eyed teenager Ana (Milena Smit), who is likewise round and near-ready to burst. Neither pregnancy was planned. Both women will be single moms to daughters. Both have the advantage of wealth, maids, and nannies to help care for them. But even within this privilege, there are problems. Arturo is uneasy about a romantic fling leading to a child. Ana’s mother, an aging actress who’s finally snatching at success, is uninterested in being tied down by grandma duties. Meanwhile. Ana’s father is estranged because of the circumstances that led to the pregnancy. So, the two parallel mothers, one twice the age of the other, lean on each other for moral support. That is until Janis spots something unsettling. 

At first, the thread about the mass grave feels disconnected from this domestic drama about beautiful women struggling in motherhood. Yet as these moms grow closer, so does the tension over the secret buried between them. Within this simmering suspense, Almodóvar’s thoughtful script probes their generation divide. Janis lectures young Ana for her apathy toward a war that’s victims still suffer, that’s survivors still remember the grim details of the day their fathers were marched out of town. But Janis’s anger isn’t just at Ana. It’s also at the future that is coming fast and without pity. 

Like his rightfully acclaimed “All About My Mother,” “Parallel Mothers” embraces the messiness of woman and motherhood more specifically.

Like his rightfully acclaimed All About My Mother, Parallel Mothers embraces the messiness of woman and motherhood more specifically. To hold our mothers on some saintly pedestal is a trap, as they are destined to fall. Instead, Almodóvar embraces them as people who are passionate, impulsive, traumatized, and — most importantly — trying. The relationship between Janis and Ana shifts, sometimes to uncomfortable places and into uneasy power dynamics. Their lives are influenced not only by men, some dashing some dastardly, but also by ambitious women, portrayed by Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and returning Almódovar player Rossy de Palma. Thereby this quartet explores various paths of womanhood, refusing to make “mom” a singular definition. Despite tearful fights, crushing recriminations, and ugly moments where honesty is cruel, these women will bind together to find a fragile yet powerful peace. Like in All About My Mother, they will find an ending as happy as one might reasonably wish for in an Almódovar offering. 

Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Essentially, Parallel Mothers is the latest in audacious auteur’s adoring exploration of the resilience of women. By centering on mothers young and older, he celebrates the complexities of the experience in a thoughtful array of scenes. He cherishes the joys found in parenthood, but also the suffocating terror within such responsibility. He tenderly exposes the conflict between a woman’s identity as a mother and an artist, where one role is considered crucial but also taken for granted, while the other might be personally satisfying yet is viewed by others as vain excess. Within this twisting tale of love and loss, he and his spectacular ensemble grapple with much, yet never snag the thread. 

De Palma is brassy and beautiful as a bestie divine. Sánchez-Gijón is enchanting and infuriating in turn as Ana’s fame-chasing mother. Cruz is expectedly terrific, grounding her performance with her dark penetrating gaze and a face that glows with pleasure, pain, and hope. Yet Smit holds her own against these more established stars. The relative newcomer carries a youthful earnestness that’s a bouncy contrast to Cruz’s elegant ease. Yet Ana’s is a story of a girl growing up hard and fast, and Smit manages the sharp turns with a dancer’s grace and a hard stare. Like the women in the film, these actresses bolster each other, building together a drama that is bracing, bittersweet, yet ultimately deeply humane.

Parallel Mothers opens in select theaters on Dec. 24.