One for Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar remains one of my favorite directors years after he made Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and All About My Mother. His reputation with me was cemented by Bad Education, a story of abuse and deception in a Catholic boys' school. His new film, Broken Embraces, strikes a balance between the screaming camp of Women on the Verge and the quieter Volver.

Any film made in the 1980s - when Women on the Verge was made - is bound to be somewhat campy. The Spanish love of eye-searing color seems to have reached a high point during that decade. Farce and caricature is part of what makes Almodovar himself.

Broken Embraces takes a deeper interest in its characters' emotional lives and moves at a slower pace; compared to the films with which Almodovar made his reputation, there is a shocking lack of transvestitism and perversion.

I won't describe the plot except to say it unfolds slowly and convincingly; some things are given a little too much time, others not quite enough, but in the end it balances out and you leave feeling that the characters were believable and sympathetic.

The cast - the ubiquitous but still lovely Penélope Cruz, Lluis Homar (who one remembers as Sr. Berenguer in Bad Educaton), Blanca Portillo and José Luis Goméz - perform beautifully, and though one hopes Almodovar could get back to his farcical, campy ways, this was a good film for him to make.