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Movies / Upcoming / Broken Embraces
Broken Embraces

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Broken Embraces (2009)

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Reviews Counted:65

Fresh:53

Rotten:12

Average Rating:6.7/10

Consensus: Pedro Almodovar'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.

Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for sexual content, language and some drug material

Genre: Foreign Films

Theatrical Release:28-08-2009

Synopsis: A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car rash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he not only lost his sight, he also lost , thef his... A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car rash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he not only lost his sight, he also lost , thef his life.

Lena love o This man uses two names: Harry Caine, a playful pseudonym with which he signs his literary works, stories and scripts, and Mateo Blanco, his real name, with which he lives and signs the film he directs. After the accident, Mateo Blanco reduces himself to his seudonym, Harry Caine. If he can’t direct films he can only survive with the idea that Mateo Blanco died on Lanzarote with his beloved Lena. In the present day, Harry Caine lives thanks to the scripts he writes and to the help he gets rom his faithful former production manager, Judit García, and from Diego, her son, his secretary, typist and guide. Since he decided to live and tell stories, Harry is an active, attractive blind man who has developed all his other senses in order to enjoy life, on a basis of irony and self‐induced amnesia. He has erased from his biography any trace of his first identity, Mateo Blanco. One night Diego has an accident and Harry takes care of him (his mother, Judit, is out of Madrid and they decide not to tell her anything so as not to alarm her). During the first nights of his convalescence, Diego asks him about the time when he answered to the name of Mateo Blanco, after a moment of astonishment Harry can’t refuse and he tells Diego hat happened fourteen years before with the idea of entertaining him, just as a father tells his little child a story so that he’ll fall asleep. The story of Mateo, Lena,

Judit and Ernesto Martel is a story of “amour fou”, dominated by fatality, jealously, the abuse of power, treachery and a guilt complex. A moving and terrible story, the most expressive image of which is the photo of two lovers embracing, torn into a thousand pieces. --© Sony Pictures Classics
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Starring: Penélope Cruz, Lluis Homar, Lola Dueñas, Ángela Molina

Starring: Penélope Cruz, Lluis Homar, Lola Dueñas, Ángela Molina, Carlos Leal, Ruben Ochandiano, Rossy De Palma, Tamar Novas, Blanca Portillo, Kiti Manver, Chus Lampreave

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar
Producer: Agustin Almodovar
Composer: Alberto Iglesias
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

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Reviews for Broken Embraces

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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It is ironic that, of all Almodovar’s films, Broken Embraces is the biggest budget and the greatest length, yet it is also the dullest. His devoted fans will be delighted, but those who enjoyed Volver will be disappointed.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
09/01/09
Cosmo Landesman
Cosmo Landesman
Sunday Times (UK)

An intriguing film of great intelligence and formal beauty.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
09/01/09
Philip French
Philip French
Observer [UK]

Gorgeous and seductive, if pitched at Almodóvar fans and perhaps a touch long. Those drawn by Cruz’s divadom will wonder why it takes so long to get to her — though she is wholly dazzling when it does.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
08/29/09
Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

While some of Almodóvar’s films are out-and-out heartbreakers – perfect storms of melodrama, storytelling and extreme living – this is a more cerebral, self-reflective and noir-ish affair.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
08/29/09
Dave Calhoun
Dave Calhoun
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Pedro Almodóvar is a film-maker so innately talented that even when half-cocked, as he is in Broken Embraces, he can somehow produce a movie that is effortlessly superior to most features.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
08/29/09
Kevin Maher
Kevin Maher
Times [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Broken Embraces is a film in which the director demonstrates a continuing, virtuoso fluency in a cinematic language that he himself invented. It's an embrace I want to submit to.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
08/29/09
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Broken Embraces is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a slightly overindulgent parade of gushing film references.

Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | comment Comment
08/29/09
Tim Robey
Tim Robey
Daily Telegraph
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Like an elaborately woven cobweb, it’s a marvel but so full of holes that it’s all too easily swept from memory.

Full Review Source: Little White Lies | comment Comment
08/29/09
Sophie Ivan
Sophie Ivan
Little White Lies

Almodóvar's natural affinity with women (particularly women who are forced to act tough) enables an easy balance of noirish grit and that high melodrama which has become his trademark.

Full Review Source: Digital Spy | comment Comment
08/29/09
Stella Papamichael
Stella Papamichael
Digital Spy

Entertaining enough with visuals to die for, but definitely not as emotionally rewarding as some of this director's other recent pictures.

comment Comment
08/29/09
Neil Smith
Neil Smith
Heat Magazine

Despite first-class performances – from Cruz, Gomez and Homar – Almodovar’s narrative appears laboured, offering none of the surprises that lent vim and vigour to his earlier outings.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
08/29/09
Tim Evans
Tim Evans
Sky Movies

Your eyeballs will relish Almodóvar’s movie-movie cocktail, but it’d be nice to see him serve up some fresh flavours. Despite the tactile direction, there isn’t enough to resonate post-film.

Full Review Source: Total Film | comment Comment
08/29/09
Kevin Harley
Kevin Harley
Total Film

The director’s previous films...are all, in some way, about cinema – but this need is especially acute in Broken Embraces, which eats its own tail.

Full Review Source: Filmstar Magazine | comment Comment
08/29/09
Thom Hutchinson
Thom Hutchinson
Filmstar Magazine

His films can be uncomfortably navel-gazing, and that’s the case in this somewhat maudlin contemplation of the woes of film-making and the life artistic.

Full Review Source: Uncut Magazine [UK] | comment Comment
08/29/09
Jonathan Romney
Jonathan Romney
Uncut Magazine [UK]

Precious, pointless and tediously self-aggrandising.

Full Review Source: Daily Mail [UK] | comment Comment
08/29/09
Christopher Tookey
Christopher Tookey
Daily Mail [UK]

The film may lack great depth, but it is a visual treat about films within films and packed with top performances.

Full Review Source: Sunday Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
08/29/09
Mark Adams
Mark Adams
Sunday Mirror [UK]

The Spanish director's noirish touches are a delight to behold and there are few film makers who can touch him for sheer visual artistry.

Full Review Source: Sun Online | comment Comment
08/29/09
Sun Online

Can Pedro Almodóvar make a bad film? The answer seems to be no, even when he might be accused of trying. Broken Embraces has a mazy plot in which a poor director would lose himself fast.

Full Review Source: Financial Times | comment Comment
08/29/09
Nigel Andrews
Nigel Andrews
Financial Times

The director is toying with us, he knows it, and he knows we know it. This isn't a dud, it's just a small disappointment.

Full Review Source: Independent | comment Comment
08/29/09
Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Independent

One of the most challenging and visually accomplished films of Almodóvar’s long career.

Full Review Source: Daily Express | comment Comment
08/29/09
Allan Hunter
Allan Hunter
Daily Express
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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