Pain and Glory

I think I have an issue with late Almodovar, which it’s taken me a while to recognise. He always had a melodramatic streak, but I used to enjoy the slightly extreme, far-fetched nature of the actions, whereas now, everything seems kinda reasonable and regulated and lacking in broader surprise. It’s not … bad, per se, it’s just very tasteful and not, for me, particularly engaging. In this case there’s at least 50% of an engaging story here, as we flash between a contemporary filmmaker looking back on his past, and his childhood – the childhood story has a nice arc to it and resolves in an interesting way, but the modern day story feels very bits-and-pieces. Some of the bits and pieces are pretty interesting (Antonio Banderas certainly knows how to hold a camera’s interest) but I never quite felt involved (it may be that “films about filmmakers who aren’t making films” isn’t a genre I ever particularly go for). There’s occasional playful moments but it never quite adds up to as much as I was hoping.