Pedro Almodovar / Spain / 2016 / 99 minutes
At cinemas nationwide
Acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s latest film Julieta is an adaptation of three short stories from Canadian author Alice Munro. The film follows the titular character, played by Emma Suarez and by Julia Ugarte as her younger self, as she goes through the events in her life that led to her loss of contact with her daughter Antia (Blanca Pares) following an encounter with a face from the past.
Almodovar focuses on emotional depth over unnecessary melodrama by placing emphasis on the gradual separation between Julieta and Antia over the years. This is effectively conveyed by Antia’s growing reluctance to acknowledge her mother’s affections and the increasingly awkward interactions between the two. Another contributing factor is the engaging and emotionally honest performances of both Suarez and Ugarte as both incarnations of Julieta. Ugarte effectively portrays both the initial optimism and independent nature of Julieta as an aspiring teacher who can confront her father about his infidelity, but who later falls into depression following the death of her husband Xoan (Daniel Grao). Similarly, Suarez is completely convincing in her depiction of Julieta the abandoned and vulnerable mother who tries to block out her daughter’s absence with a relationship, but is drawn to reach out to her following a fateful encounter with an old friend.
Almodovar’s use of the flashback structure to tell the story of Julieta’s relationships with Xoan and later Antia through Julieta writing a letter to her daughter allows the film’s character development to unfold at a gradual and natural pace rather than being revealed in a series of cliched narrative beats.
Julieta is another superb film from Almodovar that serves as a fine and intricate character study of a woman’s fear of abandonment.