User reviews

The screenplay of 'Julieta' is constructed with almost mathematical precision. In one of the first scenes, director Almodovar presents the question that is central to the rest of the film: what happened to the daughter of lead character Julieta? Most of the film consists of a long flashback, in which he slowly reveals the circumstances and events that led to her disappearance. At the end of the film, we are back in the present again, and we know everything there is to know.

It's a story Hitchcock would have been proud of: there is suspense, a beautiful blonde femme fatale, and psychological story elements. Not only the story, but also the cinematography is reminiscent of the master of suspense. Every scene is shot with extreme attention to lighting, colour and camera angle. Small details are the cherry on the cake: notice the way Almodovar introduces the birthday cake for the disappeared daughter: shot from above, as if it is a surreal work of art. Another example is the short sex scene in the train: the viewer sees only Julieta's head, but the rest of her body is reflected in the window pane behind her. As a director, Almodovar wants as much to be in control as Hitch. The result is a very beautiful film in every way - even the soundtrack is extremely tasteful.

'Julieta' is an elegantly filmed drama. There are no outrageous characters, exuberant scenes or other colourful elements we know from his earlier films. This is a restrained, precise and in every way immaculate piece of cinema.

In Madrid, the middle-aged Julieta (Emma Suárez) is packing her books to move to Portugal with her boyfriend Lorenzo (Dario Grandinetti). She goes shopping for the journey and stumbles upon Bea (Michelle Jenner), who was the best friend of her missing daughter Antia. They talk to each other and Bea discloses that Antia is married with three children. Julieta decides to stay in Madrid; breaks with Lorenzo; and rents an apartment in her former building, hoping that Antia contacts her. She decides to write the heartbreaking story of her life since she was a young woman and met her beloved future husband and Antia´s father Xoan (Daniel Grao) until the losses of Xoan and Antia.

"Julieta" is a dramatic romance by Pedro Almodóvar in a conventional style totally different from most of his previous works, since it is neither tacky nor aggressive to the Catholic Church; and using neither bright colors nor bizarre characters. Indeed it is a mature work disclosing the story of a middle-aged depressed woman that has her life affected for the loss of her beloved husband first and the last twelve years for the disappearance of her eighteen year-old daughter. The most important, the powerful drama never becomes a melodramatic soap-opera. The screenplay is very well-written with a perfect open end and magnificent cast. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Julieta"

Not Almodovar's best film, but also far from his weakest. This character study/mystery/melodrama has hints of both Douglas Sirk and even Hitchcock in its beautiful look, production design, and score, even if it's story is more wispy than most films by those old masters.

Julieta is a classy, attractive middle-aged woman, living seemingly happily with a successful writer, when she encounters an old friend of her daughter's. The friend tells Julieta of running into the girl while traveling – not knowing the daughter disappeared many years ago, a loss that left Julieta emotionally destroyed.

Julieta abruptly decides to break up with her current man, and live alone to try and deal with the re-awakened grief she had finally managed to tamp down. She writes the story of her adult life and loves – which led to her loss – as a sort of goodbye (perhaps suicide?) letter/diary to her daughter that she knows will probably never be read.

The story is always interesting, and the performances are generally quite strong (with one glaring exception in Rossy De Palma's over the top villain-y maid, who seems like she's stepped out one of Almodovar's far less subtle, more campy stories). But while the characters are going through tempests of great emotion, the film kept me cool, removed and observational. That's no crime, but it did keep it from being a powerful experience -- it ended up being an 'interesting and stylish' one instead. Almodovar has said he intended the film to be seen twice, so one can re-see the scenes understanding the film's later revelations, and as admire his work I'm willing to give it that chance and see if that deepens the experience.

It's usually worth watching an Almodovar movie if only for the exquisite use he makes of the camera and the quality of acting he manages to extract from his cast. That is certainly the case with Julieta in which every scene is beautifully composed. Andalusia, Galicia and Madrid have never looked so enticing. Having said that, the narrative of this movie is really poor. It revolves in some sense around the theme of guilt but that doesn't stand up well to a close examination. The twist at the close is pure melodrama and the film doesn't really end at all. Almodovar just brings down the shutters on the movie. So this is very much a mixed bag. Lovely filming, lovely actors, lovely decor, but dare I say it, this is basically an art-house soap.

After taking something of a major nose-dive with "I'm So Excited" that many other directors might not have recovered from, Almodovar is back on something approaching his best form. In many respects, "Julieta" is his 'All About My Daughter' though it doesn't have the same emotional clout that "All About My Mother" or "Volver" had. This is Pedro is a very serious mode, perhaps too serious; maybe a little bit of humor might not have gone amiss.

Julieta is played by two different actresses, (Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suarez), at different stages of her life and much of the film is told in flashbacks. These women, and Almodovar's meticulous direction, hold our attention but I was never moved by the film in a way I felt I should have been, at least until the very end.

The source material is three stories by Alice Munro, none of which I've read, but considering how seamlessly Almodovar keeps the material flowing I am sure he has done a very fine job of adapting them for the screen, nor can I imagine how the original conception of filming this in English with Meryl Streep might have worked. So not quite top-notch Almodovar but proof, nevertheless, that he can still deliver the goods when he's called to.

I'm a big fan of Almodóvar's work, his movies follow my life since I was a teenager, I always adore his early work, movies like "Kika", "High heels" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" are still considered by me as the height of his career - a bizarre comedy- dramas with a kinky side and raw edges.

in the late 90's Almodóvar became famous worldwide with movies such as "live flesh" "all about your mother" and "talk to her" a melodramatic movies that touched us with a unique approach and vivid colors.

this movie is similar to his big successful movies from the late 90s: the women are in the center of the story where the men pushed aside, there is still a melodramatic approach and lots of mysteries that similar to an onion, piled up slowly, layer by layer until the very end of the movie. the colors are vivid like most of his movies, especially the red color, a sign of passion for Almodóvar, just like his Characters who drive themselves by their total passion to life and love.

so, is that movie good? if you want to compare it to his best and famous work - "all about your mother" and "talk to her" then this movie will lose the fight, it's less sophisticated and the plot has less twists, but still it's a good movie with a touching plot, good acting and a great director who hasn't lost his touch.

Pedro Almodovar's 2oth feature film being an engaging and thought-provoking melodrama dealing with a middle age woman , Emma Suarez , living in Madrid with her sweetheart , Dario Grandinetti , about to move towards Lisboa . She , then , decides to stay only in Madrid to take on her existence and the most essential deeds about her missing daughter , Priscila Delgado . Julieta begins to record by writing her sad memories when she was a teen : Adriana Ugarte , and how she meets a fisher, Daniel Grao , and falls for him .

Interesting and agreeable melodrama by Almodovar with plenty of passions , tragedy , love , death and twists . Being based on 3 stories by Alice Munro titled : Chance, Soon and Silence from her collection Runaway . Including great performances from main cast as Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte . Attractive as well as sensational support cast with plenty of Almodovar familiar faces , such as : Dario Grandinetti, Rossi De Palma in her seventh collaboration , along with others as Daniel Grao , Imma Cuesta, Natalie Poza , Michelle Jenner , Susi Sánchez , Joaquin Notario and Pilar Castro . Sensitive and enjoyable soundtrack by Oscar Winner Alberto Iglesias , Almodovar regular. Colorful and evocative cinematography by cameraman Jean Claude Larrieu and a lot of frames contains the Red color.

La motion picture was well directed by Pedro Almodovar in his usual style, being produced by his brother Agustin Almodovar and their production company , El Deseo . This is Almodovar return to women's drama which he has not directed on since Volver . Almodovar is considered to be one of the best fimmakers of the film history . He has got a lot of hits with dramatic films as Talk to her , Volver , The flower of My secret , The sin I live in, Abrazos rotos , Carne Trémula, Tacones Lejanos , Ley Del Deseo , Que he hecho yo para merecer esto , Matador ! , but also has made comedies as Women on the edge of breakdown , Kika , Laberinto de pasiones , I am so excited and Pepi Lucia Bom. Rating : 7/0 . Better than average . The pic will appeal to Pedro Almodovar followers.

You may enjoy Julieta (2016) more if you know that it is a women's film from the melodrama genre and a story of pure emotion. While it is labelled a romance it is nothing like a romance and don't expect light entertainment or laughs as the film is devoid of humour. What is does have is an outpouring of quintessentially maternal guilt and self-absorbed loss that is palpable throughout the film. While critics may be divided, this is a beautiful film with a long aftertaste.

We meet the attractive widow Julieta just as she is packing to leave Madrid and move with her boyfriend to Portugal. Madrid is full of painful memories, the most intense of which is not seeing her daughter Antia for twelve years. A chance encounter with her daughter's former best friend opens an uncontrollable torrent of guilt which suddenly fills Julieta's life. Abandoning her boyfriend, she decides to stay in Madrid in case Antia ever looks for her. Unable to deal with her grief in any other way, she writes the story of her life as if she is talking to her absent daughter.

Julieta narrates the story in chapters that become extended flashbacks to her early romance with Antia's father, their lives together as a family and its eventual disintegration. What was once a life full of loving relationships becomes one of multiple losses even though Julieta herself bears little blame for the tragedies. Julieta is unaware how deeply her daughter was affected by what happened and is bewildered when Antia searches for spirituality at a Swiss retreat. Her sudden disappearance without explanation has left her mother with unresolved grief.

As each chapter unfolds we see the larger portrait of the mother and daughter relationship in all its dense complexity and destructive power. The narrative teasingly denies us knowledge of why Antia refuses all contact with her mother, and year after year Julieta mourns each passing birthday as if it was a funeral. The storytelling intensity is sustained by finely nuanced acting from the two stars who play the younger and older Julieta, and those who play Antia at different ages. The camera-work has a melancholic sensitivity that resonates with the Spanish landscapes and urban settings, and while the story unwinds slowly, to tell it more quickly would lose depth and meaning. Julieta is a darkly sensitive essay about the universal emotion of maternal guilt and its melancholy lifts like a rising fog with a masterfully ambivalent ending that soars.

I loved 'Julieta'. Pedro Almodovar's 2016 production is one of those films that captivates the viewers during the whole duration of the screening because of the mastering of story telling and by using human emotions. Other directors may do the same thing by making recourse to thrills or horror or intellectual curiosity but it's hard to keep the attention alive for the whole duration of a long feature film. It's not the case here – as a viewer in a cinema hall I lived every moment of this story together with its (mostly female) heroes, and I keep thinking and caring about the characters hours after the screening finished. I believe that the conditions are met for the first 10 out of 10 grade on my IMDb scale in years.

Many of the previous films of Almodovar are about love and loss, about communication with and without words, about death and passion and the fragile border between them. What seems to be different in 'Julieta' is the more tender approach and also a message that seems to be more assertive that in many other movies of the Spanish maestro – there are dangers in being lonely and in not being capable to communicate with those you care about.

The social landscape where the film takes place is the same Spain in evolution from the democratic awakening of the late 70s and early 80s with its breaking of tradition and liberation of passions until the today with its cold and antiseptic kind of connections in the bourgeois or intellectual circles. The family cell is the one that seems to perpetuate not necessarily the traditions but also the cheating and domestic crises in a repetition that one can accept or revolt with all the risks taken. Julieta's profession – a teacher of Greek and mythology, and a good one – puts her in the position to connect between the day to day banality of sentiments and the greater forces of destiny, but her problem resides mainly in the lack of communication with her daughter. Are the walls between generations unavoidable? Is it us who build these walls or is it just destiny that rises them in each generation? Can anything but time turn these walls down?

As in any great movies there are several levels of story. There is a story of relationship between mother and daughter, and of coming of age. There are threads about family relations that perpetuate for generations, about men who cheat, women who try to balance marriage, mothering, and their own realization, young maids who steal husbands, old maids who talk too much, social differences that can only be hidden but not erased. Death seems to be around the corner at many moments, so is physical incapacity and the pain of coping with the decay of the dear ones – these are some of the recurring themes in the movies of the Spanish master.

As in many of Almodovar's films its the women characters who share most of the load (although this film also features one sensitive man as a key supporting character). The two actresses that play Julieta at the two stages of her life – Adriana Ugarte as a young woman, Emma Suárez as her elder self are both superb in taking turns to tell the story of a woman who loves and fears, loses all and searches back to find her compass in life. The way the story is written we learn about many of the details and discover some of the hidden threads together with the character. This helps us feel and resonate with her. The elegant casting and direction help us understand that while guilt may pass in between generations, there is always hope, and reconciliation is possible sometimes when not too many questions are asked. Beautifully filmed, deeply moving, superbly acted – what else can we ask?

Based on three short stories in "Runaway" by Alice Munro: the title character is a resident of Madrid who is suddenly re-stimulated by the pain of having been estranged by her young adult daughter many years ago. In flashback, the viewer is brought to an earlier time when Julieta meets her daughter's father and the events that happened later. In the current time, Julieta is played by Emma Suarez; in the earlier flashbacks, she is played by Adriana Ugarte.

As directed by Pedro Almodovar, this movie is touching in ways that are mysterious, sensuous, and passionate. It pays off like so many other beautiful and exotic European films of the past. With beautiful locations that include Madrid, the Galician coast, and the Pyrenees countryside (and lifestyles of people who end up in places like Portugal, Switzerland, Lake Como, and Milan), the movie allows us non-Europeans to temporarily live vicariously through characters with such good fortune - even if their lives are sad in other ways.

By the end, there are some loose ends that are mainly due to some one-dimensional villains whose motives remain unexplained. They include a busybody, mean-spirited housekeeper and an unethical leader of a "spiritual" retreat centre. However, the bigger stories feel complete by the end, leaving "Julieta" a very fulfilling experience. Suarez's performance in this movie is definitely an asset.

Julieta is definitely not the best, but for sure not the worst of Almodovar either. It's a good story, with very good actors, good characters but the scenes Almodovar put all together are stereotypes of his own cinema and his own world. It's a bit like Tarantino who exaggerates what he does (or did) the best. Is it because he gets older and older ? Is it because he lacks inspiration ? I loved his cinema, I don't want to lash out at him but this film is not enough to resuscitate Almodovar's genius. Almodovar masters the dramatic art, the seriousness of scenes, the desire on screen but he mainly made a postcard of his own, a postcard of his own world. The salad bowl is beautiful, full of fresh vegetables and Spanish specialties, the house on the North coast features an outstanding view over the sea, the Spanish village in the south is authentic and calm, the kitchen's wall paper reminds the eighties but it is mainly "beautifully cheesy". It requires no effort to watch it, you can let you drive by his eternal love towards Madrid, the women, the Spanish country side, sexual desires and you can lie to yourself saying it's agreat one... it may work for some time and you'll have a good moment. The end of the film is just a non-ending story... and we (his fans) will wait for the next one.

My interest in Almodovar is rather muted. He doesn't excel in any of the ways of presenting the world that really matter to me but he does several things more than well, so every so often I visit. There is the desire to submerge ourselves in fiction, lose ourselves to self in order to wake to a fabric that extends from self. That's Talk to Her for me.

But like Woody Allen or the Coens, he has consistently worked for so long on the same motifs that coming to him is also a matter of is he particularly inspired that day. I'm pleased to say he is.

In the individual pieces of cinematic craft, this is not particularly exceptional. If you're heavily inclined to how story resolves drama, you will see here something that simply trails off near the end. The symbolic motifs greet us upfront; a deer in slow-motion, tumultuous sea out the window. His bright reds on walls and the like are not something I can get excited about, in this or any film.

But he is inspired today on the fundamental matter of self passing through self. He manages to do this with just a few strands of narrative. There is the young woman who was on her way to all life ahead of her that night on the train, who finds herself yanked by unexpected passion. There is the house of passion in the small fishing village, eerily explored with Hitchcock hues. And there is bewildering loss as she wanders away a widowed mother.

Above all I love here the sense of transition. Almodovar does so well - his actress helps - in spinning narrative to explore tragedy. He says enough about the jittery urge for adventure as a story we throw ourselves in so that we can infer more fleeting illusion around the crushing melodrama about life breaking down. She's not just this grieving woman that another film, say, in the realist format would have simply followed around Madrid; we're privy to all this richness of her young self having set off in search. Things couldn't have only worked this way for her, it's important to see; but sometimes they do, sometimes setting out for open sea means finding yourself marooned on an island, nothing right or wrong.

And Almodovar is ineluctably Spanish, meaning Catholic; so communion with the fleeting, transcendent stuff must take place firmly within ritual, in his case (just like Ruiz before) fiction. The whole is narrated by an author writing the story down as she waits in her apartment, shifting us forward and back. It speaks about the imaginative mind being burdened by the narratives of memory. For Almodovar, there is merit in the effort. Had she not stayed behind to write, she would have missed the letter. Even more pertinently for me, there is a bedridden mother (a mirrored woman) who is allowed to languish in her room, written off as an invalid. But when her daughter comes to visit, the recognition nourishes her back to her feet.

There is a great expectation during the whole film. Just to disapoint you very near the end.

I found Julieta to be interesting at the very least. The story has a smooth flow and My whole attention was within the movie. I was trying to grasp everything the characters said while enjoying the visuals and the score.

Technically, this is probably Almadovar's best work. The scenery and camera work is beautiful. The colors please the eye. The score in the background is always in the right tone. Aiding to the smooth transitions within the movie. The cast is excellent. I understood clearly who each character is.

The main theme of Julieta is the relationship between a mother and her child. And that some things we understand as we grow older, with our life experience. This is a recurring theme in Almadovar's movies ('High Heels', 'Volver') but it is set upon a different set of characters with different virtues and faults. And of course a different story.

The plot is imperfect but it is very interesting nonetheless. I didn't fall in love with the characters of Julieta like it was in 'All about my mother' - and this is the main reason I didn't rate it higher - but I still felt their human side. And on the upside, there were no annoying or boring characters either.

People write about a new Almadovar. Well, for me it was a bit of misleading. I saw the director's signature elements through the whole movie. I'm talking about the camera shots, the low amount of people on set, the gradual revelation of events so when the credits roll the viewer knows all that happened explaining all the references made. It is less extravagant then some of his other work, but it is definitely not his first in being such.

'Julieta (2016)', essentially, plays out like a cinematic telenovela (slight oxymoron, aside). It focuses upon a woman who's life returns to the broken waiting-game it once was when she hears of her long-lost daughter during a chance encounter with an old acquaintance. The bulk of the plot actually involves our protagonist writing down her 'dark' past in an effort to explain it properly to her daughter upon their possible reunion, with this journal being portrayed as flashbacks that take up a majority of the flick's run-time. Its strange structure makes for a story that's often told alongside - or, sometimes, instead of - being shown. It does feel a bit odd when the protagonist tells her off-screen kid about things that the kid personally did, clearly just for the sake of the audience. Still, most of the picture is interesting and, even, engaging, despite its flaws. It draws you in pretty quickly thanks to its more-than-competent construction and solid performances. There's not all that much to the piece, however. It basically ends as soon as it gets going and its revelations aren't as devastating as its oddly enigmatic soundtrack would have you believe. Having said that, the movie isn't really about what might happen once its credits have rolled - even if it seems to promise that incredibly early on. It's more of a two-hander that looks at the early life of its lead and the effect that her daughter's disappearance had on her. The latter isn't really given enough attention, especially as it feels like it's supposed to be the focus of the film (since this is where the 'juiciest' themes are), and this means that the former doesn't feel justified enough. The 'current day' stuff is too beefy to just be a framing device but the flashback bits seem like they almost want to be the main narrative, yet feel more like an extended side-plot with fairly little pay-off. It's like there were two possible interpretations of the film that quite never got decided between during production. Like I said, though, the affair is a relatively compelling one that doesn't drag and is never boring. It's entertaining in its own right, even if it ultimately doesn't feel all that deep and has a few key issues. In the end, it's a solid effort. 7/10

Greetings again from the darkness. Pedro Almodovar is a fascinating filmmaker and one that I've followed consistently since his 1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Over that almost 30 year period, I have rarely felt let down by his work, and have quite often walked out of the theatre in awe of his artistry, creativity and dedication to providing original cinematic viewing experiences.

The quite visually suggestive opening sets the stage for an Almodovar experience, only what follows is much different than what we have come to expect. It's (somewhat) based on the short story trilogy of Alice Munro (Destino, Pronto, Silencio), and returns him again to his strength – telling the story of women. It may not be as flamboyant as some of his previous work, but rather it's a pure and earnest emotional drama. It even has a bit of Hitchcockian flavor with the element of mystery playing a central role.

Emma Suarez and Adrian Ugarte alternate in the role of Julieta and both are excellent. Ms. Suarez plays the older Julieta looking back on her life, while Ms. Ugarte populates most of the memories being entered into the journal … a writing effort designed to fill in the life gaps for her long estranged daughter Antia.

We learn that Julieta fell in love with fisherman Xoan (Daniel Grao) while his wife was in a coma, and that Antia was conceived before the wife passed away. Xoan's housekeeper Marian (played brilliantly by Almodovar regular Rossy de Palma) is one who knows a man has needs, but doesn't always know when to speak and when to remain silent. One of her not so secret secrets is Xoan's artist friend Ava (Imma Cuesta) who manages to get close to Xoan, Julieta and Antia. Ava is such an interesting character that a movie about her could have been equally entertaining. Other key players here are the older Julieta's boyfriend Lorenzo (another Almodovar regular Dario Grandinetti) and Antia's special childhood friend Bea (Sara Jimenez) who appears years later (as Michelle Jenner) in a quick appearance that rocks Julieta's world.

Guilt, death, love, disappointment, and relationships are all significant pieces to this Almodovar puzzle. Spirituality even pops up when Antia attends a retreat and makes her life-altering decision … one spurred by youth and vulnerability, and possibly leading to regret later in life. As Julieta recounts her life, we understand her middle-aged whole in the heart. She has "lost" everyone she has ever loved – her husband, her daughter, her mother.

Cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu experiments with camera angles and captures the beautiful vistas and landscapes, while never losing the intimacy required for such an emotional journey. The color red is all over the film and almost jumps off the screen at times, ensuring that the visual element never is far removed from the drama. The score from Alberto Iglesias is excellent and quite a complement to another master work from Almodovar.

I'm not a fan of Pedro Almodóvar, and do not know much their work, decided to start his filmography with his latest film, Juliet, and I was disappointed, I pretty average, maybe if I watch the other films of him, and I review Juliet perhaps my experience with film is better, Juliet has a very competent cast, with fine performances, the film has a good script, he can very well make the switch Juliet 30 years to Juliet 50, the more I found some dialogues unnecessary, the slow pace, the film gets a little tiring, has a good shot, but I expected more, Juliet is a median, with a competent cast and uninspired direction of Almodóvar. Note 6.4

Before the end credits rolled out, my feeling was "At last a great film from Almodovar with a mesmerizing performance from Emma Suarez as the older Julieta." That feeling, unfortunately, was short lived.

Almodovar had not written the story--many of his other works are his own. Almodovar had merely adapted the stories of Nobel Prize winning Canadian author Alice Munro. I have never read Munro to date but the depth of the story line urges me to do so fast. She is great!

The film is also memorable for Emma Suarez' screen presence as the older Julieta. So were the choice of the music and the paintings used in the film.

This is for me the most likable Almodovar film and yet it does not belong to him: it belongs to the Canadian lady. One got the feeling you were watching the filmed version of a modern day Dostoyevsky without the religion and Russian connections. Anyway thanks to you Mr Almodovar for your decision to make this film as also to Ms Sarah Polley for making "Away from Her," some 10 years ago, another film that used the writings of Ms. Munro.

Directing: 7 /Acting: 7 /Story: 8 /Production values: 6 /Suspence - Thriller level: 4 /Action: 0 /Mystery - unknown: 7 /Romance level: 6 /Comedy elements: 0

Julieta is a troubled woman living in Madrid with boyfriend Lorenzo. They are moving when she runs into Bea, former best friend of her daughter Antia. Bea tells her about running into Anita and her three children. It's been 12 years since Anita ran away and Julieta has never met her own grandchildren. Julieta moves back into her old apartment hoping Antia would contact her. She starts writing a letter recounting her life starting with meeting Anita's father Xoan. There is Xoan's artist friend Ava. Julieta's parents have marital issues. An incident sets Anita off with a radically changed personality.

Am I the only who wanted and expected to see adult Antia and her three kids? It seems like the movie is missing its third act. It talks about Antia's change but it doesn't confront it. Often, it's other people talking about her change. It needs the big reunion scene. It needs to be more explicit about her issues and her suspicions about her mother. There are loads of stuff left on the table. I'm assuming that Pedro Almodóvar is making the movie about Julieta but I'm just as interested in Antia. This is a nice character piece but I want more. Maybe he'll make Antia next. That would make for a nice double feature.

This feels like a very long and dull 'lifestyle' video, all bold colours, modern art, 'AirBnB' flats, 'Visit Spain' locations, Instagrammable clothes and nice (but not very original) shots. And past the style there is almost no substance. The script is bad, illogical, not believable and formulaic with more phoney coincidences than in a telenovela. The acting is stiff and cold with characters that do not inspire any feelings. 30 years as lovers, mothers, daughters, friends and they do not seem to share anything at all other than their very nice flats and houses? Compared to some previous Almodovar movies this feels like a dull visual exercise with no passion, no humour and very few ideas.