User Reviews

This Palme d'Or contestant does not reflect Almodovar's penchant for gender-bending, or his often convoluted scripts. However, it retains his female-centric theme. As "Julieta" is very much event-driven, I shall take the liberty of giving it chapter titles. The prologue shows Julieta on the verge of cleansing any thought of her daughter Antia who has gone missing for over a decade. Then she bumps into Antia's teenage-days buddy Beatrice who has in turn recently bumped into Antia, now a mother of three. This triggers Julieta's writing letters to her missing daughter (with nowhere to send) to tell her things she had not been told before. The main body of the movie is flashbacks based on these letters.

1. STRANGERS ON THE TRAIN. Julieta is seventeen. The first stranger is a middle-age man who tries to strike up a conversation, which turns her away. The second is young fisherman Xoan she encounters in the dining car, reminding you of Celine and Jessie. But circumstances are different as Xoan has a wife who is in a coma. There is distinct Hitchcockian mood here when the train comes to an abrupt halt. Despite the engineer's categorical denial, the train did hit something. When it turns out that it is the successful suicide attempt of the middle-age man, Julieta suffers a sudden pang of guilt while Xoan comforts her. They end up making love on the train.

2. DOMESTICITY BLISS. A few months later, a letter from Xoan announcing his wife's demise brings Julieta to his village, when she has news for him too: she is pregnant. Antia is born healthy and beautiful.

3. MOTHER'S HELPER. In a side-plot, Julieta brings Antia on a short trip to visit her parents (father just retired and mother an invalid). Turns out that the old couple has hired a young and attractive live-in helper who, in addition to taking care of her mother, also takes care of her father, in a different way. But since Julieta has her own life, in a different city, there isn't much she can do.

4. UNDERCURRENTS. There are two characters with significance surrounding Xoan. Marian is the dominating matron-type part-time helper who for obvious reasons display immediate hostility towards Julieta. On the other hand, Ava, a sculpture artist, Xoan's long-time friend, is genuinely friendly. When Julieta eventually fires Marian, the latter intimates, through innuendos, that Ava is Xoan's ex-lover and the two still have rendezvous occasionally.

5. TRAGEDY HITS. During a 3-week period when teenage Antia is at camp, Julieta confronts Xoan about Ava, which may or may not be the reason he seeks refuge on a fishing trip, gets caught in a sudden storm and drowns. In the meantime, Antia at camp meets Beatrice (who appeared in the prologue) and the pair becomes instantly inseparable. This ended up with Antia going to spend some time at Beatrice's affluent house immediately after camp, necessitating Julieta's going there to announce the tragic news of her father's untimely death.

6. WIDOWED. Mother and daughter move to an apartment and continue their life without a man-in-the-house as Julieta accepts another undesirable reality that she has to share her daughter's affection with Beatrice. After high school, however, Beatrice seeks her career in New York while Antia goes to a secluded retreat for three months as in interlude before university.

7. DISAPPEARANCE. Julieta drives all the way to pick up Antia, only to be told that her daughter does not want to see her and has gone on to seek her own fulfillment. She lives through hell for a few years, hearing only once from Antia, a blank birthday card on the latter's own birthday.

8. TYING UP LOOSE ENDS. Upon visiting Ava (Multiple Sclerosis) Julieta finds more clue about Antia's leaving, but nothing conclusive. More importantly, she meets Ava's friend Lorenzo, and the two ended up "giving a reason for each other's existence". This brings the timeline backs to the opening prologue when Julieta bumps into Beatrice. That happens again some time later, with more revelation from Beatrice. The conclusion comes as a letter from Antia with nothing that can really be called a twist.

I may have used up all the allowed space and this turns out to be sort of a synopsis. So very quickly: great acting, good story-telling, engaging scenes – a somewhat different Almodovar, but still quite recognizable.

An Almodovar fan for decades, I couldn't wait to see his newest film after recently seeing a trailer for it while viewing Paul Verhoeven's newest, "Elle," with Isabelle Huppert: I drove 75 miles to see "Julieta" in the only city it was playing near me currently. The theater was packed and you could feel the anticipation as the lights went down, but, as the film progressed, my, my friend's, and many audience members' enjoyment of the evening started to flag. On the positive side, Almodovar and his Director of Photography (and set and costume designers) deliver a typical-for-Almodovar beautiful-to-look-at film, filled with primary colors and interesting locales, and the film is very well-acted by all involved, but as the screenplay unfolds it becomes obvious this is one of Almodovar's lesser efforts--the melodrama not as intense or surprising (or fun) as in many of his past films, and the ending one of the most unsatisfying in memory (of any film). There was some applause at the end, but it was limp and scattered--most audience members obviously thought the film just O.K. or worse. If you're a fan, it's worth seeing, as you'll appreciate his cast and the acting (and the look of the film), as I did, but if you don't know who Almodovar is or you're looking for a great film, "Julieta" isn't it.

When in Madrid these days, for a cinephile, don't miss the chance to watch Almodóvar's latest drama in the cinema, earlier than its Cannes debut later in May, and there is an afternoon screen with English subtitles catering to Anglophones.

Adapted from three short stories from Alice Munro's RUNAWAY and transposed the story to the modern-day Madrid, in the opening Julieta (Suárez) is a middle-aged woman who is going to embark on a new chapter with her boyfriend Lorenzo (Grandinetti), moving to Portugal. But a chance encounter with Beatriz (Jenner), her daughter Antía's old friend, jolts her to change her mind, she leaves Lorenzo and relocates to the apartment where she and Antía had lived in Madrid, where she unlocks the door of her hidden memories, the past comes rushing in.

In the flashback, a young Julieta (Ugarte), at the age of 25, met Antía's father, a then-married fisherman Xoan (Grao) on a night train, they engaged a passionate consummation after witnessing a suicidal incident, Julieta was pregnant. By the time of their next meeting, Xoan's long-time bed- ridden wife would just pass away, and a new nuclear family would form. But, when Antía (Delgado) was away on a summer camp, a tragedy happened, the aftermath would result in Antía's pertinacious determination of not contracting Julieta ever again, after leaving for college. So back to the present day, after learning about the news of Antía for the first time in 12 years, it is understandable that Julieta cannot make peace with the painful secret, will she finally get the forgiveness from her only daughter? Or, whether or not she should be blamed?

It is a guilt trip for Julieta to stressfully unveil her side of experiences, two deaths, although are not directly caused by her, but somehow, she feels accountable, Munro's judicious dissection of one's inner inquiry about life's capriciousness feels a tad solemn and innately incongruous with Almodóvar's wheelhouse, maybe after his previous outlandishly self-indulgent romp I'M SO EXCITED (2013), he decides to go dead serious this time, only the end product is defective in both witty enlightenment and emotional catharsis when all the plot-line is laid bare.

Multi-colored palette is still Amodóvar's unvarying trademark, strewed in the film's contemporary settings and costumes, Suárez and Ugarte are not Amodóvar's regulars, but both shoulder their narrative with engaging gusto, and the requirement of the former's performance is more challenging, and Daniel Grao, presents himself with unabashed allure, but, it is Rossy de Palma as a blunt-talking maid, steals the sole laughters and imprints with a singular mark on how a close-up of her intense stare can summon so many unsaid judgements from her character.

JULIETA cleverly ends before heading into a more conventional reconciliation, it all leaves up to audience's own imagination. Honestly speaking, Almodóvar is a marvellous story-teller, his knack of telling a run-of-the-mill story with a captivating arc, and his earnest sympathy on female characters, bodes well for his auteur reputation, even though JULIETA doesn't reach the height one might have anticipated, it is not at all a fiasco in any regard, but a pardonable misstep, which actually happens to almost all the venerable filmmakers.

After buying the book The Pedro Almodovar Archives by Paul Duncan,I took a look at what was the most recent movie covered in the book. Whilst having known about the title,I had been unaware that this was the film maker behind it,leading to me meeting Julieta.

View on the film:

Originally planning to call the feature Silence and as detailed in the Archives book by Paul Duncan that he originally planned the script to be filmed in New York, but "In the end I was defeated by uncertainty; I wasn't sure of the script or my ability to direct in English." leading it to be left aside for two years,until he picked it up again for a set in Spain version which he feels "Admirers of Alice Munro should see in my Julieta a tribute to the Canadian writer."

Moulding the material two years later on a opening shot of red fabric with a heart beating within it, which gets folded into a shot of a small naked man sculpture that gets placed into the hands of Julieta, setting off a recurring motif when Ava is depicted creating a small male sculpture, that represents the power of woman as the creator of man, and the shared personal straight they hold in the hands of writer/directing auteur Pedro Almodovar's creation.

Revealing later that he and his regular composer Alberto Iglesias had long discussions over finding the right tone for the score,Almodovar again displays his remarkable eye for colour coding stylisation, with Almodovar & cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu placing red (a prominent colour across Almodovar's works) into every shot, stirring up a intense atmosphere from the grief and sorrow running in the blood of the characters, which is reflected on screen in a bright red.

Draining all colour bar the beating red from bringing light to Julieta's life,Almodovar reveals that he went into the production with the mind-set that "From the outset I had in mind that Julieta is a Drama,not a Melodrama." which Almodovar expresses with a thoughtfulness of toning down his distant flamboyant colours, for startling pristine white peeled along wide-angle shots of a grieving Julieta living a hollow existence, detached from all the colour of life.

Covering the first half of Julieta's life,Adriana Ugarte gives a exceptional performance as the younger Julieta, who even in moments of happiness in the early days of her marriage to Xoan are carried by Ugarte with a melancholy pinned underneath, which Ugarte rings dry of sorrow when tragedy lands on the shore.

Absolutely mesmerising when sitting alone mourning on a bench against the plain white background, Emma Suarez links her older Julieta to Ugarte's younger version, with the aftermath of the tragedy remaining red raw and being pressed down by Suarez on the withdrawn shoulders of Julieta.

For only the third adaptation he has ever done, Almodovar bakes the clay of three unconnected short stories by Canadian writer , which fittingly results in a fragmented state that captures Julieta, who each time she tries to put her family photo past together, finds that the fragments never neatly slot together.

Leaving a mark on Julieta from the death of a stag seen outside a train as she makes love with the newly-met Xoan, Almodovar takes to heart the original Silence title of the picture, with the grief and sorrow being carried silently by Julieta, who Almodovar gives a wonderfully fragmented ending to, after Julieta has waited for her family with a bright red cake.