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Amazon.co.uk Review
Spanish for "coming back," Volver is a return to the all-female format of All About My Mother. Unlike Pedro Almodóvar's previous two pictures, the story revolves around a group of women in Madrid and his native La Mancha. (The cast received a collective best actress award at Cannes.) Raimunda (a zaftig Penélope Cruz) is the engine powering this heartfelt, yet humorous vehicle. When husband Paco (Antonio de la Torre) is murdered, Raimunda makes like Mildred Pierce to deflect attention away from daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo). After telling everyone the lout has left, she struggles to conceal his body. The other women in her life all have secrets of their own. Her sister, Sole (Lola Dueñas), for instance, has taken in their mother, Irene (a sprightly Carmen Maura). Since Irene perished in a fire, is this person a ghost or simply a woman who looks like her? Then there's their childhood friend, Agustina (Blanca Portillo), who is desperate to find out why her mother disappeared after the blaze. Was she responsible? Almodóvar deftly blends the ghost story with the murder mystery in his tribute to the Italian neo-realist films of the 1950s. The resilient Raimunda is a throwback to the earthy heroines of Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. The latter appears in Luchino Visconti's Bellissima, which shows up on Sole's television one night (thus confirming the link). If Almodóvar’s 16th feature lacks the emotional punch of the more audacious Talk to Her, it's less heavy-handed than Bad Education and Cruz is a revelation. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"Volver" is a beautiful film. Unique in its construction and emotionally riveting in its delivery. From the very first frame it is abundantly clear that a master director with a peerless cast is at work.
All the performances are excellent and very naturalistic. Naturalistic for Southern Spain that is and Penélope Cruz is simply incredible. I had never really rated her as a great dramatic actress. The only other time she had impressed me was in a small part as a Mother giving birth on a bus in another Almodóvar Film. She proved to me she could be extraordinary. So I am left with the question why she never received the award for best actress at the Oscars. It only goes to show what a travesty that Award has become.
Pedro Almodóvar is one of the best Directors alive today and that list includes only three names. The other two are Yimou Zhang and Takashi Miike. These three Directors are international. Cutting edge! They are not trapped by their Nationality or by the Hollywood system. They make intelligent films for intelligent people unlike what Hollywood is constantly spewing out into those charmless multiplex factories.
"Volver" should have won the best picture award at the Oscars. Not best foreign film but Best Picture because, to put it simply, it is perfect. The Score, the acting, direction, production design, sound design, the opening credits, the final credits and most importantly the script. They are all perfect.
There is in Southern Spain an extraordinary wealth of Spanish "palabrotas" (swear words and rude phrases) and to really enjoy them a street knowledge of Spanish is recomended.
A Spanish Dictionary is of no use.
I feel Almodóvar has with Penélope Cruz given us one of the greatest female performances ever put to screen. What they have achieved is magical.
The actor that won the best actress award at the Oscars in 2006 and the film in which she appeared, will they be remembered?
"Volver" is already deep in the hearts of Cinema lovers and it is going to stay there.
Special features include a Commentary track with a talkative Pedro Almodóvar and reticent Penélope Cruz. Also included are interviews and Cannes footage.
All the performances are excellent and very naturalistic. Naturalistic for Southern Spain that is and Penélope Cruz is simply incredible. I had never really rated her as a great dramatic actress. The only other time she had impressed me was in a small part as a Mother giving birth on a bus in another Almodóvar Film. She proved to me she could be extraordinary. So I am left with the question why she never received the award for best actress at the Oscars. It only goes to show what a travesty that Award has become.
Pedro Almodóvar is one of the best Directors alive today and that list includes only three names. The other two are Yimou Zhang and Takashi Miike. These three Directors are international. Cutting edge! They are not trapped by their Nationality or by the Hollywood system. They make intelligent films for intelligent people unlike what Hollywood is constantly spewing out into those charmless multiplex factories.
"Volver" should have won the best picture award at the Oscars. Not best foreign film but Best Picture because, to put it simply, it is perfect. The Score, the acting, direction, production design, sound design, the opening credits, the final credits and most importantly the script. They are all perfect.
There is in Southern Spain an extraordinary wealth of Spanish "palabrotas" (swear words and rude phrases) and to really enjoy them a street knowledge of Spanish is recomended.
A Spanish Dictionary is of no use.
I feel Almodóvar has with Penélope Cruz given us one of the greatest female performances ever put to screen. What they have achieved is magical.
The actor that won the best actress award at the Oscars in 2006 and the film in which she appeared, will they be remembered?
"Volver" is already deep in the hearts of Cinema lovers and it is going to stay there.
Special features include a Commentary track with a talkative Pedro Almodóvar and reticent Penélope Cruz. Also included are interviews and Cannes footage.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I believe this is the third time that Penelope Cruz has worked with Pedro Almodovar and whilst she may have given some terrible performances in English (and been eclipsed for a while by the media nightmare that is a relationship with the other Cruise) she proves herself to be a quite exceptional actress in Volver.
Meaning 'The Return' Volver begins in the village of Alcanfor de las Infantas; a superstitious place, where it is said that the East Wind drives many inhabitants insane. Raimunda (Cruz), her daughter and her sister Soledad have come to visit the grave of their mother who was killed in a fire with her husband. Whilst there they visit their aunt Paula who, a little senile and through milk-bottle glasses, tells them that their mother is alive and living with her. Back home in Madrid, Raimunda comes home from work one day to find her daughter looking disturbed. She has stabbed the man she thought to be her father after he drunkenly tried to rape her. Whilst she deals with this Raimunda is called by her sister to be told their aunt has died. It is when returning from the funeral on her own that Soledad hears the voice of her mother calling her from the boot of the car.
The performances are all exceptional (the six actresses shared the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2006) but Cruz really shines in her role. When her drunken husband masturbates beside her in bed, after she has shrugged off his advances, we see her look of surprise, disgust and sadness as a tear wells in her eye. Later in the film she sings the song Volver to a restaurant filled by a film crew wrap party and whilst she may only be lip syncing her performance had me doubting.
Almodovar has said that the film 'is precisely about death...More than about death itself, the screenplay talks about the rich culture that surrounds death in the region of La Mancha, where I was born. It is about the way (not tragic at all) in which various female characters, of different generations, deal with this culture.' I guess that just about covers it.
Meaning 'The Return' Volver begins in the village of Alcanfor de las Infantas; a superstitious place, where it is said that the East Wind drives many inhabitants insane. Raimunda (Cruz), her daughter and her sister Soledad have come to visit the grave of their mother who was killed in a fire with her husband. Whilst there they visit their aunt Paula who, a little senile and through milk-bottle glasses, tells them that their mother is alive and living with her. Back home in Madrid, Raimunda comes home from work one day to find her daughter looking disturbed. She has stabbed the man she thought to be her father after he drunkenly tried to rape her. Whilst she deals with this Raimunda is called by her sister to be told their aunt has died. It is when returning from the funeral on her own that Soledad hears the voice of her mother calling her from the boot of the car.
The performances are all exceptional (the six actresses shared the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2006) but Cruz really shines in her role. When her drunken husband masturbates beside her in bed, after she has shrugged off his advances, we see her look of surprise, disgust and sadness as a tear wells in her eye. Later in the film she sings the song Volver to a restaurant filled by a film crew wrap party and whilst she may only be lip syncing her performance had me doubting.
Almodovar has said that the film 'is precisely about death...More than about death itself, the screenplay talks about the rich culture that surrounds death in the region of La Mancha, where I was born. It is about the way (not tragic at all) in which various female characters, of different generations, deal with this culture.' I guess that just about covers it.
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This was the first Pedro Almodavar film we'd seen and had only seen Penelope Cruz once before in the undemanding role she had in Captain Corelli's Mandolin. For the first fifteen minutes or so we thought it be the equivalent of a novel in the 'magic realism' mode or somesuch and my heart sank. But no, it took off and really gripped us. Cruz was great in her role which let her take all 'certain' events that befell her family in her stride with pragmatism and even humour. Excellent movie.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Well made - the story is both funny and gloomy
I bought this film hoping that it might aid my learning of the Spanish language. Whilst no fault of the film, I am struggling as not designed for easy listening. Read more
Published 16 days ago by martin clark
The dead living with the living - Cruz led melodrama
Volver is a simple but clever idea whereby the dead live amongst the living (in presence only) in a small rural Spanish town (La Mancha region). Read more
Published 3 months ago by T. BROOKES
No me gusta mucho...
I am a huge fan of Almodovar but not of this film. Sorry!
This is not so much a homage to womanhood, as a tragedy about a number of women trying to patch up their lives... Read more
This is not so much a homage to womanhood, as a tragedy about a number of women trying to patch up their lives... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Tony Baker
My first Almodovar
Great introduction to this director's oeuvre! Perhaps, one word in two hundred could I understand but the subtitles are good. Read more
Published 7 months ago by G. D. Busby
Offbeat and quirky... but excellent
In this offbeat light drama, Cruz meets her "dead" mother, whilst coping with the death of her husband at the hands of her daughter, her deteriorating financial situation, and ill... Read more
Published 10 months ago by M. Adil-smith
Who wants men?
This is a very jolly romp, greatly enhanced by fine performances and the beauty of Penelope Cruz. Men do not do well in it, so one could call it "a woman's picture" but that would... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mrs. G. M. Mulley
¡This version is not in Spanish!
I am a great fan of Almodóvar, and recently order "Abrazos Rotos" and "Volver" from Amazon. I was dismayed when I found both films were voice-overed in English: not dubbed,... Read more
Published 18 months ago by M. H. Kirk
Volver
Enjoyable though the spoken Spanish is very fast if, like me, you are still learning the language!
Published 20 months ago by E
A grown up 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown'
Both touching and absurdly comic, as is much of Almodovar's work. The film is a paean to women's strength, like a more mature. complex `Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown'. Read more
Published 22 months ago by K. Gordon
Overwhelming
I felt completly overhelmed after seeing Broken Embraces the latest Pedro Almodovar movie. I have a been a fan since his earliest movies, All about my mother and Volver being my... Read more
Published on 22 May 2010 by Rachel
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