Los Abrazos Rotos
Encyclopedia
Broken Embraces is a 2009 Spanish romantic thriller film written, produced, and directed by Pedro Almodóvar
; a four-way tale of dangerous love, and was shot in the style of a hard-boiled 1950s American film noir
, or its descendant, the neo-noir
genre. Many themes include noir references such as film posters in sets, angular, high contrast lighting and the characters' struggle with their illicit passions. However, like most Almodovar films, it is filmed in bright color rather than the black-and-white emblematic of noire. The cast includes many Almodóvar regulars such as Ángela Molina
, Lola Dueñas
and Penélope Cruz
(her fourth film with the director). The film's soundtrack includes Cat Power
, Uffie
, and Can
.
) and her adult son, Diego (Tamar Novas). Slowly, events in the present begin to bring back memories of the past. Harry hears that millionaire Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez
) has died; a young filmmaker, Ray X, appears and turns out to be Martel's son, Ernesto, Jr. (Rubén Ochandiano). After Diego is hospitalized for an accidental drug overdose in a Madrid nightclub, Harry collects Diego from the hospital and looks after him to avoid worrying his traveling mother. The main storyline is told in flashback
as Harry reluctantly tells Diego a tragic tale of fate, jealousy, abuse of power, betrayal, and guilt.
The first flashback is to 1992, which introduces Magdalena "Lena" Rivero (Penélope Cruz
), Martel's beautiful young secretary, an aspiring actress. She becomes close to Martel, a millionaire financier, in order to find the money to help meet her dying father's medical bills. By 1994, she has become Martel's mistress. At this time, Harry is still living under his real name, Mateo Blanco, a well-respected film director. Martel is excessively possessive of Lena, but she is determined to become an actress and manages to win the main role in Blanco's film Chicas y maletas (Girls and Suitcases) by bringing Martel in as financier/producer. The fictional film is similar to Almodóvar's 1988 release, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
, except that the Shiite terrorists have been replaced by a cocaine dealer; several of the cast of the previous film appear in the fictional one. Martel spies on Lena and Mateo by sending his inhibited, effeminate gay son, Ernesto, Jr., to videotape the production of the film, ostensibly for a "making of" feature, then hiring a lip-reader
(Lola Dueñas
) to interpret the conversations. Martel, seething with jealousy, screens the videos as the lip-reader narrates the furtive whispers of Lena and Mateo's passionate affair.
Furious, Martel confronts Lena, and when she threatens to leave him he pushes her down the stairs. But when she survives the fall, he relents and nurses her back to health. The filming completed, Lena and Blanco escape Martel's hold and go on holiday to Lanzarote
. Lena takes a job as a hotel receptionist to pass the time. When she and Blanco read in El Pais that Chicas y maletas has received a terrible critical reception, likely the end of Blanco's directing career, they determine to start over together far from Madrid. Fate intervenes when Blanco is seriously injured and Lena is killed in a car accident, which ironically is immortalized by Ernesto Jr., who has been trailing them with his camcorder. Mateo loses his sight permanently. Judit, his long-time production assistant, and an 8-year-old Diego arrive to help Blanco pick up the pieces and return to Madrid, where he eventually writes screenplays in braille under the pseudonym Harry Caine, represented by his agent, Judit.
The story picks up where it began in 2008: Harry shares his birthday in a bar with Judit and Diego. Judit becomes drunk on gin and, stricken with guilt, confesses to Harry that she sold out to Martel in 1994 because of her fury at Harry for abandoning the film to run away with Lena; she also tells him of her involvement in providing Martel the phone number of the hotel in Lanzarote where Lena and Mateo were hiding. She confirms that Martel sabotaged the release of Chicas y maletas by using the worst take from each scene in order to destroy Mateo's reputation. The next morning she reveals to Diego that Harry is actually his father, a fact both men were unaware of. Having exorcised some of his demons, Harry decides to return to his life as Mateo Blanco. Though believed lost, the original reels of Chicas y maletas and Ernesto Jr.'s camcorder footage are recovered: Judit had ignored Martel's order to destroy them and instead hid them away. Mateo and Diego re-edit the film for its long-delayed release as the director envisioned it.
based on 138 reviews. It currently holds a score of 77 (generally favorable reviews) on Metacritic
.
The film was accepted into the main selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or, his third film to do so and fourth to screen at the festival.
It was nominated for the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
, Almodóvar's sixth film to be nominated in this category.
It was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Foreign Language Film
, as well as the Satellite Award for Best Actress for Penélope Cruz
's performance.
It was nominated for the 2010 Vits Awards for "Best Directing" and "Best Original Script".
entirely composed by Alberto Iglesias
, which was released in Spain on CD format to coincide with the film's release. The film also includes two English tracks from American artists: "Robot Oeuf" by Uffie
, and a cover of Michael Hurley's "Werewolf" by Cat Power
.
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular...
; a four-way tale of dangerous love, and was shot in the style of a hard-boiled 1950s American film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, or its descendant, the neo-noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
genre. Many themes include noir references such as film posters in sets, angular, high contrast lighting and the characters' struggle with their illicit passions. However, like most Almodovar films, it is filmed in bright color rather than the black-and-white emblematic of noire. The cast includes many Almodóvar regulars such as Ángela Molina
Ángela Molina
Ángela Molina is a Spanish actress, and a daughter of Antonio Molina, Spanish singer and actor.Molina studied dance and theater art in the Escuela Superior de Madrid. She rose to international prominence after starring in Luis Buñuel's last movie That Obscure Object of Desire...
, Lola Dueñas
Lola Dueñas
Lola Dueñas is a Spanish actress.She is the daughter of Nicolás Dueñas and studied in the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona.- Selected filmography :*Los Abrazos Rotos...
and Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
(her fourth film with the director). The film's soundtrack includes Cat Power
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...
, Uffie
Uffie
Anna-Catherine Hartley , better known by her stage name Uffie , is a Paris-based underground electronic musician, rapper, fashion designer and socialite signed to French electronic music record label Ed Banger Records. She has been described as a muse for French DJs, and is known for working with...
, and Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
.
Plot
"Harry Caine" (Lluís Homar) is a blind writer who shares his life with his agent Judit (Blanca PortilloBlanca Portillo
-Career:Portillo started as an actress in several small theater productions before graduating in drama from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramatico....
) and her adult son, Diego (Tamar Novas). Slowly, events in the present begin to bring back memories of the past. Harry hears that millionaire Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez
José Luis Gómez
José Luis Gómez García is a Spanish film actor. He has appeared in 33 films since 1968. At the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, he won the award for Best Actor in the film Pascual Duarte.-Selected filmography:* Pascual Duarte...
) has died; a young filmmaker, Ray X, appears and turns out to be Martel's son, Ernesto, Jr. (Rubén Ochandiano). After Diego is hospitalized for an accidental drug overdose in a Madrid nightclub, Harry collects Diego from the hospital and looks after him to avoid worrying his traveling mother. The main storyline is told in flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
as Harry reluctantly tells Diego a tragic tale of fate, jealousy, abuse of power, betrayal, and guilt.
The first flashback is to 1992, which introduces Magdalena "Lena" Rivero (Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
), Martel's beautiful young secretary, an aspiring actress. She becomes close to Martel, a millionaire financier, in order to find the money to help meet her dying father's medical bills. By 1994, she has become Martel's mistress. At this time, Harry is still living under his real name, Mateo Blanco, a well-respected film director. Martel is excessively possessive of Lena, but she is determined to become an actress and manages to win the main role in Blanco's film Chicas y maletas (Girls and Suitcases) by bringing Martel in as financier/producer. The fictional film is similar to Almodóvar's 1988 release, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a 1988 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas...
, except that the Shiite terrorists have been replaced by a cocaine dealer; several of the cast of the previous film appear in the fictional one. Martel spies on Lena and Mateo by sending his inhibited, effeminate gay son, Ernesto, Jr., to videotape the production of the film, ostensibly for a "making of" feature, then hiring a lip-reader
Lip reading
Lip reading, also known as lipreading or speechreading, is a technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face and tongue with information provided by the context, language, and any residual hearing....
(Lola Dueñas
Lola Dueñas
Lola Dueñas is a Spanish actress.She is the daughter of Nicolás Dueñas and studied in the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona.- Selected filmography :*Los Abrazos Rotos...
) to interpret the conversations. Martel, seething with jealousy, screens the videos as the lip-reader narrates the furtive whispers of Lena and Mateo's passionate affair.
Furious, Martel confronts Lena, and when she threatens to leave him he pushes her down the stairs. But when she survives the fall, he relents and nurses her back to health. The filming completed, Lena and Blanco escape Martel's hold and go on holiday to Lanzarote
Lanzarote
Lanzarote , a Spanish island, is the easternmost of the autonomous Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 125 km off the coast of Africa and 1,000 km from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering 845.9 km2, it stands as the fourth largest of the islands...
. Lena takes a job as a hotel receptionist to pass the time. When she and Blanco read in El Pais that Chicas y maletas has received a terrible critical reception, likely the end of Blanco's directing career, they determine to start over together far from Madrid. Fate intervenes when Blanco is seriously injured and Lena is killed in a car accident, which ironically is immortalized by Ernesto Jr., who has been trailing them with his camcorder. Mateo loses his sight permanently. Judit, his long-time production assistant, and an 8-year-old Diego arrive to help Blanco pick up the pieces and return to Madrid, where he eventually writes screenplays in braille under the pseudonym Harry Caine, represented by his agent, Judit.
The story picks up where it began in 2008: Harry shares his birthday in a bar with Judit and Diego. Judit becomes drunk on gin and, stricken with guilt, confesses to Harry that she sold out to Martel in 1994 because of her fury at Harry for abandoning the film to run away with Lena; she also tells him of her involvement in providing Martel the phone number of the hotel in Lanzarote where Lena and Mateo were hiding. She confirms that Martel sabotaged the release of Chicas y maletas by using the worst take from each scene in order to destroy Mateo's reputation. The next morning she reveals to Diego that Harry is actually his father, a fact both men were unaware of. Having exorcised some of his demons, Harry decides to return to his life as Mateo Blanco. Though believed lost, the original reels of Chicas y maletas and Ernesto Jr.'s camcorder footage are recovered: Judit had ignored Martel's order to destroy them and instead hid them away. Mateo and Diego re-edit the film for its long-delayed release as the director envisioned it.
Cast
- Penélope CruzPenélope CruzPenélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
- Magdalena "Lena" Rivas - Blanca PortilloBlanca Portillo-Career:Portillo started as an actress in several small theater productions before graduating in drama from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramatico....
- Judit - Lluís Homar - Mateo Blanco / Harry Caine
- Lola DueñasLola DueñasLola Dueñas is a Spanish actress.She is the daughter of Nicolás Dueñas and studied in the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona.- Selected filmography :*Los Abrazos Rotos...
- Lectora de labios - Ángela MolinaÁngela MolinaÁngela Molina is a Spanish actress, and a daughter of Antonio Molina, Spanish singer and actor.Molina studied dance and theater art in the Escuela Superior de Madrid. She rose to international prominence after starring in Luis Buñuel's last movie That Obscure Object of Desire...
- Mrs. Rivas - Rossy de PalmaRossy de PalmaRossy de Palma, is a Spanish actress. Described by many as a Picasso come-to-life, Rossy de Palma broke the rules of beauty in 1988 when she starred in Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and became a model and muse for designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and...
- Julieta - José Luis GómezJosé Luis GómezJosé Luis Gómez García is a Spanish film actor. He has appeared in 33 films since 1968. At the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, he won the award for Best Actor in the film Pascual Duarte.-Selected filmography:* Pascual Duarte...
- Ernesto Martel - Tamar Novas - Diego
- Rubén Ochandiano - Ray X / Ernesto Martel, Jr.
- Chus LampreaveChus LampreaveChus Lampreave is a Spanish actress.She started in movies in 1958, but she became internationally known thanks to her roles in films by Pedro Almodóvar, where she plays old ladies with maternal or pastoral traits.- Filmography :...
- Portera - Kiti MánverKiti ManverKiti Manver is a Spanish actress. She has appeared in 84 films and television shows since 1970. She starred in the 1973 film Habla, mudita, which was entered into the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
- Madame Mylene - Mariola FuentesMariola FuentesMariola Fuentes is a Spanish actress.She usually plays tragicomical characters. She started to be known in 1997, thanks to her role in Perdona bonita, pero Lucas me quería a mí...
- Edurne - Carmen MachiCarmen MachiCarmen Machi is a Spanish actress.- Biography :Born María del Carmen Machi Arroyo in Madrid, she gew up in Getafe. Her father's family comes from Genoa...
- Chon - Kira MiróKira MiróKira García-Beltrán Miró is a Spanish actress and a presenter.-As an actress:* Los abrazos rotos * Rivales * Gominolas - Susana / Menta...
- Modelo - Alejo SaurasAlejo SaurasAlejo Martín Sauras is Spanish actor who is best known as Raúl Martinez in Los Serrano.-Biography:...
- Álex
Reception
As of March 2011, the film held an 81% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
based on 138 reviews. It currently holds a score of 77 (generally favorable reviews) on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
.
The film was accepted into the main selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
2009 Cannes Film Festival
The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or, his third film to do so and fourth to screen at the festival.
It was nominated for the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the awards presented at the Golden Globes, an American film awards ceremony.Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film could be honoured...
, Almodóvar's sixth film to be nominated in this category.
It was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Satellite Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Satellite Award for Best Foreign Film is one of the annual Satellite Awards given by the International Press Academy.- 1990s :- 2000s :- 2010s :...
, as well as the Satellite Award for Best Actress for Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
's performance.
It was nominated for the 2010 Vits Awards for "Best Directing" and "Best Original Script".
Soundtrack
The film includes an original soundtrack albumSoundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
entirely composed by Alberto Iglesias
Alberto Iglesias
Alberto Iglesias Fernández-Berridi is a Spanish composer. He wrote the music for several Spanish films, mostly from Pedro Almodóvar...
, which was released in Spain on CD format to coincide with the film's release. The film also includes two English tracks from American artists: "Robot Oeuf" by Uffie
Uffie
Anna-Catherine Hartley , better known by her stage name Uffie , is a Paris-based underground electronic musician, rapper, fashion designer and socialite signed to French electronic music record label Ed Banger Records. She has been described as a muse for French DJs, and is known for working with...
, and a cover of Michael Hurley's "Werewolf" by Cat Power
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...
.