Broken Embraces (Sunday, November 22, 2009) (166)

To say this film is 'lesser Almodovar' is like saying that The Curse of the Jade Scorpion or Scoop are lesser Woody Allen films. Yes - it is totally true that these are not good, but these films are basically as good as Woody is going to get in his winter years. Everything that Almodovar has done in the last ten years has been 'lesser Almodovar' - though this film might be even less than most of those.

In this film, a blind film director (oooh, the symbolism), finds out that a one-time film financier has died, so he recounts to his assistant the complicated story of their business relationship. Of course, the director had an affair with the millionaire's mistress and there is also a creepy gay son who worked with the director at some point. Considering it's Almodovar, there are three stories inside the one story and several different love affairs (strangely mostly between straight folks this time) with a few different betrayals and mistaken identities.

For a rather easy story (man tells story of falling in love with another man's mistress), this feels like a very complicated (probably too complicated) movie. Almodovar is, as always, obsessed with Hollywood cliches, so there's a playfulness, and a tiredness to the whole thing. Some of these trite elements are outright inventions by themselves - where they feel like old banalities, but are totally fresh (in art, one would call these 'simulacra').

Still, it does get rather old to see the same things again. Of course the director is blind; of course he is a sex machine and lady-slayer who can lay any woman he meets, and has no problem getting the most gorgeous ones (not that he would care if they were not beautiful); of course there's a young man with mommy issues who has unknown paternity; of course there's a story within the story and a story within that story. It's all a bit overdone at this point. I don't care that there's a subplot about the director re-inventing himself with a new name, so he essentially has two identities. That's boring at this point.

One thing Almodovar does well is make movies that look pretty. Most of his shots are filled with bright colors and interesting decorations. The photography is crisp and clear and always looks great. His characters look amazing, both old and young, and everyone is dressed in the most beautiful clothing.

But nice costumes can't cover up the lack of anything close to a cohesive or compelling story. It seems like Almodovar is on auto-pilot recycling plot points and narrative switchbacks from older films just for the sake of doing it. What we get is an overly-complex, dull story. It's not loathsome, but it's far from good.

Stars: 1.5 of 4