‘Parallel Mothers’ highlights the coming movie week
Above: Penelope Cruz stars in "Parallel Mothers," which opens on Friday. (Photo/Sony Pictures Classics)
I suggested that the new Pedro Almodóvar, “Parallel Mothers,” might be coming to area theaters on Friday. And I was right. “Parallel Mothers” will open at AMC River Park Square. As will the animated film “Flee.”
But let me digress for a moment: If you’re looking for something special to watch tonight – in a theater, on a big screen – know that the 1942 film “Casablanca” will screen at 7 at two area Regal Cinemas sites, Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium.
If you have never seen the film, you’re missing out. But even if you have, we’re talking about a film that the late Eoger Ebert wrote “plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it.”
Anyway, that’s tonight. On Friday, we’ll have “Parallel Mothers” and “Flee.”
Written and directed by Almodóvar, “Parallel Mothers” tells the story of two Spanish women, played by Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit, who give birth at the same time. Their subsequent lives play out, with the painful legacy of Spain’s fascist history affecting both of them.
New York Times critic A.O. Scott wrote, “If, at first, the horror of the past had seemed like the scaffolding for a modern story, the final sections of ‘Parallel Mothers’ suggest the opposite. Injustice festers across generations. The failure to confront it casts a persistent, ugly shadow.”
Seattle Times critic Moira Macdonald wrote, “(‘Parallel Mothers’) has numerous Almodóvar hallmarks – it’s a story of women, a plot that dances a delicate tango with melodrama, a primary-color-splashed visual feast – but feels entirely fresh; it’s as if the Spanish filmmaker is re-creating his own genre anew.”
Time Out critic Dave Calhoun wrote, “Only Pedro Almodóvar could wrap a cry of pain about Spain’s inability to come to terms with its recent dark history into a gorgeous-looking melodrama about two mothers drawn by fate into a complicated, painful and ultimately nourishing relationship.”
Directed and co-written by Jonas Poher Rasmussen (with Amin Nawabi), “Flee” is an aminated exploration of the life of screenwriter Nawabi. On the verge of his wedding, Nawabi struggles with secrets that he has suppressed for the 20 years since his flight as a child refugee from Afghanistan.
Los Angeles Times critic Jen Yamato wrote, “An intimate portrait of the lasting traumas of displacement and one of the most humane films of the year.”
Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday wrote, “ ‘Flee’ morphs from a tale of dispossession to a testament to the power of narrative – to overtake a life, and to liberate it.”
Deadline Hollywood critic Todd McCarthy wrote, “With great resourcefulness, Rasmussen puts you through it in a way that illustrates, instructs, makes you look inward and ask whether you’d have what it takes, if you could tough it out and survive in a cold, hostile world.”
More is coming. I’ll update as the week progresses.