Parallel Mothers (2021)
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Parallel Mothers Movie Review
Parallel Mothers is a 2021 Spanish drama film directed by Pedro Almodovar and starring Penelope Cruz. It is a beautiful movie that is engaging and superbly acted.
Two single women meet in a hospital room where they are both going to give birth. Janis is middle aged and does not regret it, while Ana is adolescent and scared. Eventually, we get to the expected twist – the two babies got switched at birth. At first, I rolled my eyes at this development. It was way too soapy for my personal liking, resembling a genuine soap opera in the process. But eventually, I came to love the movie despite this initial trapping.
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That’s because what Almodovar did here was incredible. He evaded the usual suspenseful and/or overly melodramatic treatment with this twisty tale. Instead, he focused on the human drama behind it all. The fact that none of the characters do anything horrible to each other was also commendable, again making the movie more of a straightforward drama with this one added melodramatic twist.
There is this interesting theme of biological connection going on here. The protagonist literally loses two babes in a very short amount of time and that is obviously extremely difficult, but she also deals with her complex, tragic heritage. That subplot where the grave of her great-grandfather is exhumed is even better than the main storyline.
It was very moving seeing how heartbreaking it still is for older people in the country who never got to see their parents’ graves. That final sequence is so powerful that it’s the highlight of the entire picture. It was elegantly shot and directed. This was the absolute perfect way to end the movie on.
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Parallel Mothers is definitely very interesting and different in its portrayal of the importance of biological connections and above all else motherhood. In an extremely pro-choice era, it was refreshing seeing both of these women wanting to keep their babies and the movie actually depicting it as the right choice. The whole exploration of the importance of mothers in our society was excellent.
The acting performances are uniformly splendid. Aitana Sanchez-Gijon was fantastic in a smaller role of Ana’s mother. Her conflict of whether to fight for her career or focus solely on her daughter through her most important time in life was well explored. Milena Smit is terrific as Ana. The film’s added lesbian romance only complicated things further for these two women and it was the right choice from the filmmaker to end the relationship. Janis teaching Ana how to cut potatoes is another strong sequence that is very motherly in its imagery.
Penelope Cruz perhaps delivered her career-best performance here. She really surprised me how effortlessly she carried most of the movie on her shoulders. And it is a demanding, meaty role that asked for a variety of different emotions and the actress delivered each and every one of them. The scene she where she found out about the switch-up was particularly outstanding in her facial acting.
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Parallel Mothers is also impeccably paced, edited and directed. This is one of Almodovar’s best and most engaging movies to date as it flies by how riveting it is. Admittedly, its two main storylines could have been connected a bit better, but for the most part the film is outstanding despite the somewhat implausible scenario at the center of it.
