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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.

Australian Rating: TBC

Genre: Foreign Films

Australian Theatrical Release:
Apr 4, 2009 Wide

US Box Office: $107,111

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
[More]

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; Australian critics are listed first)
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It’s a sheer indulgence for Almodóvar and just as indulgent for his fans.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
11/25/09
Richard Mowe
Richard Mowe
Boxoffice Magazine

While it doesn't pack the emotional heft of director Pedro Almodóvar's most moving films, such as Volver, it is stylish and arresting, with powerful performances and a compelling, if at times contrived, story.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
11/24/09
Claudia Puig
Claudia Puig
USA Today
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces is a lush, deeply romantic noir dense with nods to films past, yet it plays as if it sprung fully formed from the director’s unconscious.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
11/23/09
David Edelstein
David Edelstein
New York Magazine

Intriguing, well-structured and mildly engaging with strong performances, but its balance of comedy, melodrama and romance feels slightly uneven and contrived.

Full Review Source: NYC Movie Guru | comment Comment
11/22/09
Avi Offer
Avi Offer
NYC Movie Guru

Stylish Almodovar drama is too mature for teens.

Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | comment Comment
11/20/09
S. Jhoanna Robledo
S. Jhoanna Robledo
Common Sense Media

Pedro Almodóvar's latest is perfectly titled: it's a big, swoony kiss that doesn't quite connect with the passion he intends. But fans of the Spanish auteur--or his muse, Penélope Cruz--will find plenty to love.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
11/20/09
Elizabeth Weitzman
Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News

Mr. Almodóvar's love of movies informs every frame of this beautiful film. When Harry's fingers explore the dotted landscape of a Braille script, they bespeak the writer's unbroken embrace of language and drama.

Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | comment Comment
11/20/09
Joe Morgenstern
Joe Morgenstern
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Penelope Cruz is a treat for the eyes, and so is her latest film, Pedro Almodovar’s sizzlingly sexy film noir Broken Embraces, a love letter to the magical power of movies to mend broken hearts.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
11/20/09
Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
New York Post

Almodovar's latest feels a bit lackluster after his recent string of excellent films, but it still contains some inspired, cinema-on-cinema sequences.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
11/19/09
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Leaves the viewer in a contradictory state, a mixture of devastation and euphoria, amusement and dismay that deserves its own clinical designation.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
11/19/09
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

There is the beloved and the lover. The first moves in shining beauty, and the second envies every ray of light that has the gift of kissing her. This is how it is in obsessions. It’s how it is in the movies, too.

Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | comment Comment
11/19/09
Stephen Whitty
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger

A self-reflective melodrama about filmmaking and revenge.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
11/19/09
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

Broken Embraces welds Douglas Sirk melodrama to the most gracefully unsettling elements of Alfred Hitchcock, wrapping both in the stylish, hushed elegance that’s become Almodóvar’s trademark since his mid-’90s reinvention.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
11/19/09
Keith Phipps
Keith Phipps
AV Club

for all of his elegant homage, reflection, and beautiful treatment of Cruz, Almodóvar's actual storytelling gets a little hoary

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
11/19/09
Jesse Hassenger
Jesse Hassenger
Filmcritic.com

Crafted with the confidence and ambition of a master filmmaker, but that's not quite the same as the product of a filmmaker at his peak.

Full Review Source: Metromix.com | comment Comment
11/19/09
Geoff Berkshire
Geoff Berkshire
Metromix.com

Almodóvar lost his nerve when he acquired expensive technique. Inspired by Buñuel and De Palma, he used to match them. Now, his once underground satires are just expensive tearjerkers.

Full Review Source: New York Press | comment Comment
11/19/09
Armond White
Armond White
New York Press

Like a well-crafted novel, Broken Embraces takes its time revealing its true intentions...an emotional time bomb, packed with passion, color, romance and tragedy.

Full Review Source: Hollywood & Fine | comment Comment
11/19/09
Marshall Fine
Marshall Fine
Hollywood & Fine

A riveting sit, due to the filmmaker's incredible storytelling gifts, and the cast, who articulate a dreamy series of toxic encounters with sniper-like precision, tightening Almodovar's noose with exceptional skill.

Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com | comment Comment
11/19/09
Brian Orndorf
Brian Orndorf
BrianOrndorf.com

Cruz doesn't coast on her beauty in Broken Embraces, and she has the kind of role that can be difficult to flesh out.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
11/19/09
Stephanie Zacharek
Stephanie Zacharek
Salon.com

Not every time a filmmaker and his muse collaborate is it going to be a cause for celebration. Broken Embraces is a perfect example of that disappointing truth.

Full Review Source: The Movie Minute | comment Comment
11/18/09
Joanna Langfield
Joanna Langfield
The Movie Minute
 
 
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