''Broken Embraces'' ( es, Los abrazos rotos, links=no) is a 2009 Spanish
romantic thriller
A romantic thriller is a narrative that involves elements of the romance and thriller genres.
A good thriller provides entertainment by making viewers uncomfortable with moments of suspense, the heightened feeling of anxiety and fright. A thril ...
film written, produced, and directed by
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narr ...
. Led by an
ensemble cast
In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17
Structure
In contrast to ...
consisting of many Almodóvar regulars, it stars
Lluís Homar
Lluís Homar i Toboso (born 20 April 1957) is a Spanish actor and theater director from Barcelona. He is best known for his roles in Pedro Almodóvar's '' Bad Education'' (2004) and ''Broken Embraces'' (2009), in Emilio Aragón's ''Paper Birds'' ...
as a
blind Madrilenian screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
who recalls his tragic love for Lena, played by
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez (; ; born 28 April 1974) is a Spanish actress. Known for her roles in films of several genres, particularly those in the Spanish language, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British A ...
, the deceased lead actress in his last directional feature ''Girls and Suitcases'', who was also the mistress of a powerful, obsessive businessman (
José Luis Gómez José Luis Gómez may refer to:
* José Luis Gómez (actor) (born 1940), Spanish actor and director
* José Luis Gómez (footballer) (born 1993), Argentine footballer
* José Luis Gómez Martínez (born 1943), Spanish professor
* Joselu (footba ...
).
Blanca Portillo
Blanca Portillo Martínez de Velasco (born 15 June 1963) is a Spanish actress.
Career
Portillo started as an actress in several small theater productions before graduating in drama from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático.
One of he ...
co-stars as his agent Judit, while
Tamar Novas
Tamar Novas Pita (born 3 October 1986) is a Spanish actor.
Biography
Tamar Novas Pita was born in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, on 3 October 1986. He was cast for a minor role in José Luis Cuerda's ''Butterfly's Tongue'' in his early 10s, ...
portrays her son and Caine's co-writer Diego.
Inspired by darkness and by a photo of a couple that Almodóvar took of El Golfo beach in
Lanzarote
Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...
in the late 1990s, the film serves as an
homage
Homage (Old English) or Hommage (French) may refer to:
History
*Homage (feudal) /ˈhɒmɪdʒ/, the medieval oath of allegiance
*Commendation ceremony, medieval homage ceremony Arts
*Homage (arts) /oʊˈmɑʒ/, an allusion or imitation by one arti ...
to filmmaking, cinema and its various
film genre
A film genre is a stylistic or thematic category for motion pictures based on similarities either in the narrative elements, aesthetic approach, or the emotional response to the film.
Drawing heavily from the theories of literary-genre cri ...
s. Stylistically, it is a complex
noir-ish melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
, that also blends comic elements with a
film within a film
A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes c ...
—a broad comedy, that hearkens back to Almodóvar's 1988 release, ''
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
''Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown'' ( es, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios) is a 1988 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas. The film brought Almodóvar to ...
''. Thematically, ''Broken Embraces'' addresses themes like
voyeurism
Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature.
The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". A ...
,
repression, prostitution, death,
vengeance
Vengeance may refer to:
*Vengeance (concept) or revenge, a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance
Film
* ''Vengeance'' (1930 film), action adventure film directed by Archie Mayo
* ''Vengeance'' (1937 film) or ''W ...
,
fixation, illness, and drugs.
''Broken Embraces'' was one of the films competing for the
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival
The 62nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 May to 24 May 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. Twenty films from thirteen countries were selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. The awards were announced on 23 M ...
. Dubbed "purest Almodóvar" by ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', the film was noted for the director's characteristic "bright primary colors," erotic subject matter, and meticulous, "visually pulsating" cinematography. The picture was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at both the 2009
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...
and the
67th Golden Globe Awards
The 67th Golden Globe Awards was telecasted live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, January 17, 2010 by NBC, from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (PST) and 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM (EST) (1:00 – 4:00; Monday, January 18 UTC). ...
.
Plot
"Harry Caine" is a blind writer who shares his life with his agent Judit and her adult son, Diego. Slowly, events in the present begin to bring back memories of the past. Harry hears that millionaire Ernesto Martel has died; a young filmmaker, Ray X, appears and turns out to be Martel's son, Ernesto Jr. After Diego is hospitalized for an accidental drug overdose in a Madrid nightclub, Harry collects Diego from the hospital and looks after him to avoid worrying his traveling mother. The main storyline is told in
flashback as Harry reluctantly tells Diego a tragic tale of fate, jealousy, abuse of power, betrayal, and guilt.
The first flashback is to 1992, which introduces Magdalena "Lena" Rivero, Martel's beautiful young secretary, an aspiring actress. She becomes close to Martel, a millionaire financier, in order to find the money to help meet her dying father's medical bills. By 1994, she has become Martel's mistress. At this time, Harry is still living under his real name, Mateo Blanco, a well-respected film director. Martel is excessively possessive of Lena, but she is determined to become an actress and manages to win the main role in Blanco's film ''Chicas y maletas'' (''Girls and Suitcases'') by bringing Martel in as financier/producer. (The fictional film is similar to Almodóvar's 1988 release, ''
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
''Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown'' ( es, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios) is a 1988 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas. The film brought Almodóvar to ...
'', except that the Shiite terrorists have been replaced by a cocaine dealer; several of the cast of the previous film appear in the fictional one.) Martel spies on Lena and Mateo by sending his inhibited, effeminate gay son, Ernesto Jr., to videotape the production of the film, ostensibly for a "
making of
In cinema, behind-the-scenes (BTS), also known as the making-of, the set, or on the set, is a type of documentary film that features the production of a film or television program. This is often referred to as the EPK (electronic press kit) vid ...
" feature, then hiring a
lip-reader to interpret the conversations. Martel, seething with jealousy, screens the videos as the lip-reader narrates the furtive whispers of Lena and Mateo's passionate affair.
Furious, Martel confronts Lena, and when she threatens to leave him, he pushes her down the stairs. But when she survives the fall, he relents and nurses her back to health. The filming completed, Lena and Blanco escape Martel's hold and go on holiday to
Lanzarote
Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...
. Lena takes a job as a hotel receptionist to pass the time. When she and Blanco read in ''
El País
''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA.
It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...
'' that ''Chicas y maletas'' has received terrible reviews from critics, likely the end of Blanco's directing career, they decide to start over again together far from Madrid. Fate intervenes when Blanco is seriously injured and Lena is killed in a car accident, which is immortalized by Ernesto Jr., who has been trailing them with his camcorder. Mateo loses his sight permanently. Judit, his long-time production assistant, and an 8-year-old Diego arrive to help Blanco pick up the pieces and return to Madrid, where he eventually writes screenplays in braille under the pseudonym Harry Caine, represented by his agent, Judit.
The story picks up where it began in 2008: Harry shares his birthday in a bar with Judit and Diego. Judit becomes drunk on gin and, stricken with guilt, confesses to Harry that she sold out to Martel in 1994 because of her fury at Harry for abandoning the film to run away with Lena; she also tells him of her involvement in providing Martel the phone number of the hotel in Lanzarote where Lena and Mateo were hiding. She confirms that Martel sabotaged the release of ''Chicas y maletas'' by using the worst take from each scene in order to destroy Mateo's reputation. The next morning, she reveals to Diego that Harry is actually his father, a fact both men were unaware of. Having exorcised some of his demons, Harry decides to return to his life as Mateo Blanco. Though believed lost, the original reels of ''Chicas y maletas'' and Ernesto Jr.'s camcorder footage are recovered: Judit had ignored Martel's order to destroy them and instead had hidden them away. Mateo and Diego re-edit the film for its long-delayed release as the director envisioned it.
Cast
Reception
The film has received generally positive reviews by critics; review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reported that 82% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 158 reviews. Its consensus states "Pedro Almodóvar's fourth film with Penélope Cruz isn't his finest work, but he brings his signature visual brilliance to this noirish tale, and the cast turns in some first-class performances." It currently holds a score of 76 (generally favorable reviews) on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
. ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' film critic
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film four out of four stars, and wrote that "''Broken Embraces'' is a voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors, caressing Penélope Cruz, using the devices of a Hitchcock to distract us with surfaces while the sinister uncoils beneath."
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' included the film in its "Top 10 films of 2009" list.
The film was accepted into the main selection at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival
The 62nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 May to 24 May 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. Twenty films from thirteen countries were selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. The awards were announced on 23 M ...
in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or,
Almodóvar's third to do so, and fourth to screen at the festival. ''Broken Embraces'' was nominated for the 2010
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is a Golden Globe Award presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film coul ...
, Almodóvar's sixth film to be nominated in this category. It was also nominated for the
Satellite Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Satellite Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the annual Satellite Awards given by the International Press Academy.
Winners and nominees 1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
References
External links
Official website
{{Satel ...
, as well as the
Satellite Award for Best Actress for Penélope Cruz's performance.
Accolades
Soundtrack
The film includes an original soundtrack album composed entirely by
Alberto Iglesias
Alberto Iglesias Fernández-Berridi (born 21 October 1955) is a Spanish composer. He was first noticed as a score composer for Spanish films, mostly from Pedro Almodóvar and Julio Medem. His career became more international with time and he even ...
, which was released in Spain on CD format to coincide with the film's release. The film also includes two English tracks from American artists: "Robot Oeuf" by
Uffie
Anna-Catherine Hartley (born December 9, 1987), known professionally as Uffie (), is an American-French singer, songwriter, rapper, DJ, and fashion designer formerly signed to French electronic music record label Ed Banger Records.
Uffie's music ...
, and a cover of
Michael Hurley's "Werewolf" by
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and model. Cat Power was originally the name of her first band, but has become her stage name as a ...
.
See also
*
List of Spanish films of 2009
A list of Spanish-produced and co-produced feature films released in Spain in 2009. When applicable, the domestic theatrical release date is favoured.
Films
Box office
The ten highest-grossing Spanish films in 2009, by domestic box office ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{Navboxes
, title = Awards for ''Broken Embraces''
, list =
{{Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Foreign Language Film
{{Satellite Award Best Foreign Language Film
2009 films
2009 LGBT-related films
2009 romantic drama films
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2000s English-language films
2000s romantic thriller films
2000s Spanish-language films
El Deseo films
English-language Spanish films
Films about filmmaking
Films about infidelity
Films directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Films produced by Agustín Almodóvar
Films scored by Alberto Iglesias
Films set in the 1990s
Films set in the 2000s
Films shot in the Canary Islands
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LGBT-related romantic drama films
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Spanish LGBT-related films
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Spanish romantic thriller films
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