Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Mielna Smit) are two expecting mothers who meet as roommates in the maternity ward.  With similar, yet different, circumstances that brought them together, the two become unlikely friends through the shared trials of single motherhood.  After their discharge from the hospital, the two promise to stay in touch but time, as it so often does, leads to their separation until fate and tragedy bring the two back together in Parallel Mothers, the latest film by Pedro Almodóvar. 

With a script that was decades in the making, Almodóvar continues his examination of women, specifically mothers, and how they navigate through society.  He does so with his trademarked tenderness set in a boldly colored and stylized world, all meticulously dressed and set for the prying eye of his camera.  As with his other works, he handles all the characters with careful compassion as he peels back the layers to expose their suffering.  Lesser scripts would come off as works of trauma tourism, but because Almodóvar injects so much of his own identity into his scripts they are much more personal explorations and not exploitative. 

With Parallel Mothers, Almodóvar bookends his tale of motherhood with cultural tragedy.  Janis begins working with an archeologist, Arturo (Israel Elejalde), who petitions to exhume a mass grave believed to hold her ancestors killed in the Spanish Civil War.  This tender plotline is largely shelved once Janis becomes pregnant, but it returns to help conclude the film.  The nesting narrative is a common theme in Almodóvar’s work, however, it seems to be a little off-balance here.  Thankfully, both storylines are incredibly engaging but the flow and pacing of the film across all of its multiple storylines are not as polished as we have come to expect from the Spanish master.  The unwieldy narrative is not to be mistaken as a major deterrent because the film still looks and feels like the work of a true artisan following his vision. 

In front of the camera, Cruz appears incredibly comfortable in a decidedly uncomfortable role.  The arc of her character is a difficult one, but she handles it will all the necessary ferocity to show us that she is one who has a high standard and ideal for herself so that when life continues to derail her, we feel sympathy towards her as we also feel like we have been struggling alongside her.  Janis is not an easy role and requires a lot of nuance which Cruz expertly delivers as she learns uncomfortable facts and needs to find a balance of what to share and what to keep to herself.  There is a lot of pain that surrounds Janis and Cruz walks the line of being able to show how it affects her, but also her resolve to overcome it all. 

Opposite Janis, or rather running parallel to, is Ana, the second single mother of the title and a survivor of sexual abuse.  A relative newcomer, Smit is unflinching as she shares the screen with Cruz and appears natural in front of the camera.  Ana has her own narrative weight to bear, none of these women have particularly easy lives, and like with Janis, Ana’s resolve to overcome anything that comes her way is admirable.  The choices made on the page for Ana make her a bit of an enigma, but Smit sells the decisions well enough on screen that it is not distracting as she follows through on her tragic arc.  The mentorship role which Janis fills in Smit’s life occupies much of the middle act of the film and it is a very beautiful relationship to watch unfold and it is this relationship that makes Parallel Mothers such a special film to witness. 

Parallel Mothers is incredibly form-fitting for Almodóvar who fills the frame with bold colors for his latest nesting doll story about the strife of motherhood and the important role they play in our lives.  One of the most interesting things about the film is how he utilizes technology accepting it as part of the reality of this world.  The argument is often heard that cellphones have ruined tension in movies, but with Parallel Mothers, Almodóvar clearly rejects that notion and proves that just because there are modern advances, does not mean that we as people have stopped hiding parts of ourselves from others. It is a film about family. It is a film about loss. It is a film about love. Three timeless themes that will transcend no matter how advanced as a society we become because they are inherent to our own existence. Almodóvar understands this fully and the result on screen is one of his most mature and heart-wrenching films to date.