JULIETA

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 humour 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.