Julieta

Julieta (2016) begins as we learn that a woman living in Madrid has heard nothing from her daughter in twelve years. Julieta is about to move away when she runs into a friend of her daughter's by chance, cancels everything and sits down to write the past. From there the film goes back to her youth. The source is three stories from Alice Munro's Runaway: Chance, Soon and Silence. All three follow the same woman at different points, and Almodóvar joins them into one. The stories are set in Canada; the film moves them to Spain. It is one of his more restrained films, with the usual colour and comedy turned down. The subject is guilt: a woman carrying her share of blame for years, and how that has come between her and her daughter. Two actresses share the role. Adriana Ugarte plays her young and Emma Suárez plays her older, and the change happens within a single scene, under a towel. It competed at Cannes. It runs 98 minutes. Good for: Almodóvar, mothers and daughters, and literary adaptation. Less good for: the film is emotionally closed and stays quiet for anyone expecting the director's exuberance. Some plot connections rest on coincidence, and the ending cuts off without explaining itself.