As in all my movie reviews, beware of spoilers. If you haven’t invested some of your own precious time to see the damn flick, go do so now, form your own opinion, and then come back here to read the truth. That having been said, I don’t generally disclose the major turning points unless they’re so poorly done as to be worthy of a good slam.

Pedro Almodóvar, the greatest living big-draw Spanish film director still churning out product, has more issues with the mother archetype than Dr. Sigmund Freud. His latest offering splattered on the silver screen is no exception. This movie is dominated by a cast of strong women, while the male characters are relegated to the roles of dead beat father, womanizers, cheats, and incestuous child molesters.

Penélope Cruz I have always greatly admired. In this film she gives as authentic a performance as she can muster, but what is up with the constantly bloodshot eyes? I know she was crying in ever other scene, but her eyes here are lit up like radishes. She looked like an extra in a Billy Idol video.

So if you hadn’t guessed from the title - which means “return”, as in, from the dead - the movie is about death, especially the death of men. Pretty much every male character is either already dead or meets his demise during the two hours and one minute we spend saturating in this slice of cinematic bliss. The “story” here is, as is usual with Almodóvar, a complex exploration of intertwining relationships and layers of mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, nieces, granddaughters, second cousins twice removed... you get the picture.

So basically the set up is a woman, her husband and her daughter. The woman, played by Cruz, is dealing with the death of her grandmother, her husband, and her - in the process of dieing - sister, all the while trying to sort out what happened with the strange triple death of her mother, father, and aunt. If you dread going to family reunions as much as I, the spider-web mess of these folk’s lives will leave you cringing behind the sofa. On the other hand their predicaments might make you thankful of the relative (pun intended) simplicity in the drama you endured in last Christmas’ turkey carving ordeal you had to drink your way through.

Penélope’s daughter is played by Yohana Cobo, who is supposed to 14 in the movie and there’s a great shot of her changing clothes while, you guessed it, her sicko dad is watching through the door crack. Okay, so how is that legal? She’s an actress playing the part, and she’s 21 at the time of the shoot. So now I don’t feel quite as creepy having to admit that her pert firm breasts are among the best I’ve ever seen. Being viewed in HD via Blu-ray on my Plasma screen she was quite the scintillating treat...

And on that subject, Almodóvar’s films usually flow rampant with sex, albeit generally between transgender people, but this movie exercised restraint in that arena. Other than the above scene, I don’t recall there being any other direct sex on screen. But Almodóvar sure loves to film the heaving cleavage of overweight prostitutes as well as that of Penélope, who is not exactly overweight and doesn’t play a prostitute. And he certainly spent undo time letting the camera linger on women’s butts in all sundry various activities, for instance bending over car trunks while hoisting, well, you’ll have to see it for yourself. More than once he must’ve barked the directive to Penélope through his bugle horn: “pull your 3-times-too-tight fitting skirt down lower while you walk, make it real obvious this time!!”

Most important to me is Almodóvar’s use of color and his unique camera positions and angles and sense of direction of space. We have plenty of the latter here, and some color but the palette was nothing extraordinary. As you probably know, and certainly should know, Almodóvar’s 1988 masterpiece “Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios” set the standard for startling vibrancy which even he has never surpassed.

An enjoyable and interesting film, despite being about relationships between a family of women, which typically begs a high rating on the bore-me-o-meter, I liked this movie. But then again, you know me. I love Almodóvar, and I love foreign movies. Oh, so for those of you not into subtitles (I’m sure you haven’t made it this far, because I used too many multi-syllable words) go back to your football game and bury your thick numb skull in another 6-pack of Milwaukee's Best. Leave the art stuff to us people who understand it – we’re trained professionals.

Bad Man's Rating: 6 out of 10

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