Pain and Glory

With Sharon over at Janie's house for dinner, I finished watching Pain and Glory on the AppleTv. I had started to watch the film on my iPad on the way to DC in early February, but got interrupted.

Pain and Glory was nominated as the Spanish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. Antonio Banderas was nominated for Best Actor. It was chosen by Time magazine as the best film of the year. This is part of my journey to see all of the films nominated for the major Oscar categories every year.

The film was written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It is in Spanish with English subtitles. The movie stars Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo and Penélope Cruz as Jacinta Mallo, Salvador's mother.

The film narrates a series of reunions for Salvador Mallo; he is a film director in his decline. Some of these reunions play out in real time, while others are recalled through flashbacks to his childhood in the 1960s. The movie is viewed as a thinly disguised autobiography and the most retrospective work in Almodóvar's 40-year career.

While I am generally not crazy about subtitles [I feel like I miss too much of what is happening on the screen], I have to admit that I enjoyed this movie more than I expected. The second half of the film goes in a direction that I wasn't quite expecting and I love the ending!