DVD Review: Broken Embraces
Posted on Mar 18, 2010 @ 01:54PM - Add a comment
Secrets, lies, sex and love: Broken Embraces has it all. Throw in some drug-laced gazpacho, homemade flan and a dark love triangle enshrouded in mystery, and Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film unfolds with the Spanish director’s signature sense of farce and deviance, but with new layers of intrigue and a mind-boggling -- and, one would hope, self-aware -- degree of melodrama.
Penélope Cruz plays Lena, a woman caught between two rich men who fall hopelessly in love with her, playing tug-of-war until her tragic death in a car accident. The film, which arrives on DVD Tuesday, begins 14 years after Lena’s accidental death when her true love, Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar), is compelled to tell the story to Diego (Tamar Novas), the son of his close friend and former colleague, Judit Garcia (Blanca Portillo). Mateo, it should be noted, is now not only blind (thanks to the accident), but also insists on being called by his unconvincing pseudonym, Harry Caine, in the belief that his when his main squeeze died, so did his former self.
