We discover an Imaginary Invalid (Molière, 1673) who is afraid of growing old and who renews contact, more or less deftly, with former acquaintances for an undisclosed purpose, either in a process of redemption or in order to fill the void of his existence. I truly loved the introductory scene with the four women washing clothes at the edge of a river, and the scenes in which Salvador Mallo is a child, with Penélope Cruz as his mother. These scenes are tenderly contemplative. Otherwise, the movie drags on excessively. Although I'm usually fond of biographies, with a certain eclecticism, on people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Nicolaus Copernicus, Mahatma Gandhi, Alan Turing, Napoléon Bonaparte, Christopher Columbus or even Elton John, what is the point, if I may, of a biography about Pedro Almodovar? In my humble opinion, this cinematographic autobiography, while moving and successful, might be summed up to an egocentric work about a sad and lonely man, with an insignificant embarrassment of riches, and is then probably reserved for the regular fans of Pedro Almodovar.
Review of Pain and Glory
