Short Cuts

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s latest hymn to his favourite leading lady, Penélope Cruz, is a labyrinthine web of story and genre that straddles two distinct timelines - the mid-1990s and today - and features a dozen or so interconnected characte

Broken Embraces

Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Selected, 15a

Rating: ****

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s latest hymn to his favourite leading lady, Penélope Cruz, is a labyrinthine web of story and genre that straddles two distinct timelines - the mid-1990s and today - and features a dozen or so interconnected characters.

A lavish, noir-influenced melodrama told in flashbacks, Broken Embraces opens with an introduction to Mateo (Lluýs Homar),who was once a successful film director, ...