I've seen it! After over a year of waiting Tall Paul and I saw Pedro Almodovar's latest film VOLVER at London's fashionable Curzon Mayfair. It was completely different to what I was expecting... I had built up an idea of what the film would be like from the stills and story line. I had completely forgotten to add in his most exciting attribute in films about women... heart.

VOLVER tells the story of Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), a hard-working woman who has to juggle the needs of a sulky teen daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) and a workshy horny husband (Antonio de la Torre). Occasionally she drives back to the small village she grew up in accompanied by her sister Sole (Lola Duenes) to see their aged aunt also called Paula (Chus Lampreave). Her aunt is her link to the past as her parents were killed in a fire 4 years earlier. The next door neighbour Agustina (Blanca Portillo) keeps an eye on the old woman while nursing sadness for her own missing mother.

Soon after one of these visits Sole phones her sister to tell her that aunt Paula has died, Raimunda however has other things to deal with... her husband dead on the kitchen floor, stabbed by young Paula after he tried to rape her. While Raimunda feigns illness, Sole attends the funeral where she hears from Agustina and the aunt's friends the rumour that old Paula had not lived alone but had shared the house with the ghost of Raimunda and Sole's mother Irene who had returned from beyond the grave to take care of her. On returning to Madrid Sole discovers Irene (Carmen Maura) in her car boot who proceeds to take up residence in her daughter's flat.

The film has so many different threads - comedy, melodrama, thriller, ghost story before finally settling down to be about the redemptive power of love. The plot's melodramatic twists and turns never appear to jar owing to the sure directorial hand of Almodovar and the performances he brings out of his roster of marvellous actresses. They rehearsed for three months before filming started which shows in the interaction between the actors making them fully believeable as family members. Penelope Cruz is a revelation as Raimunda, earthy, vibrant, resourceful, effortlessly sensual and totally charismatic.
Carmen Maura, working with Almodovar for the first time in 19 years, lights up the screen as Irene the dead mother returning to her daughters. There is a wonderful scene when Cruz sings the song VOLVER during a party not knowing Maura is listening close by. Maura's character taught her daughter the song when she was trying to get her into showbiz and has always felt her daughter never loved her. Maura's tearful reaction hearing her daughter sing the song she taught her is unbearably poignant.

There are wonderfully nuanced performances from Lola Duenas as Sole and Blanca Portillo as Agustina, pining for her lost mother as life slips by. She has a marvellous scene when she is appears on a "Trisha" type family conflict show with a venal presenter. There is also a lovely cameo from Almodovar regular Chus Lampreave as the failing but feisty aunt Paula. Special mention to for the lush photography of Jose Luis Alcaine and the emotive music of Alberto Iglesias.

Even as I write this my mind is full of moments from the film which I can't wait to see again.