Product Details

• Actors: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar
• Directors: Pedro Almodóvar
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish, French
• Subtitles: English, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
• DVD Release Date: March 16, 2010
• Run Time: 127 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002VECLXC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,369 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Broken Embraces" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Pedro Almodóvar continues to reinvent Hollywood's Golden Age for a new era with Broken Embraces. A blind screenwriter in the present day, Mateo Blanco, a.k.a. Harry Caine (Lluís Homar), reminisces about his favorite leading lady to his assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas). In 1992, when Caine met Lena (Penélope Cruz), stockbroker Ernesto (José Luis Gómez) had just made the cash-strapped secretary his mistress. First, Ernesto pays for her mother's medical care; then he supports her dream to act. In the process, Caine casts her in his screwball comedy and falls in love, and a passionate affair begins. Ernesto suspects something is up, so he hires his shifty son, Ernesto Jr. (the off-key Rubén Ochandiano), to film the couple surreptitiously, and a lip reader translates their conversations. Caine's production manager, Judit (Volver's Blanca Portillo), further complicates the scenario. By the end, Caine, whose name serves as a tip of the hat to hard-boiled author James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), has lost his vision and his girl, and the culprit isn't as obvious as it seems. With Embraces, Almodóvar riffs on Tinseltown classics where greed and lust lead to death. If less successful than Live Flesh, a prior noir, his jigsaw storytelling remains just as riveting and his principal cast rises to the occasion, particularly Cruz, who plays a more passive character than usual and remains, much like Otto Preminger's Laura before her, a mystery that no one, not even the filmmaker, can ever completely solve. --Kathleen C. Fennessy


Stills from Broken Embraces (Click for larger image)

Product Description

A luminous Penélope Cruz stars as an actress who sacrifices everything for true love in Broken Embraces, Academy Award -winning filmmaker (2003, Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Talk to Her) Pedro Almodóvar's acclaimed tale of sex, secrets and cinema. When her father becomes gravely ill, beautiful Lena (Cruz) consents to a relationship with her boss Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), a very wealthy, much-older man who pays for her father's hospitalization and provides her a lavish lifestyle. But Lena's dream is to act and soon she falls for the director of her first film - a project bankrolled by her husband to keep her near. Upon his discovery of the affair, Ernesto stops at nothing to ruin Lena's happiness.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad, but Stale and Underwritten in Parts., March 18, 2010

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mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Broken Embraces (DVD)

In "Broken Embraces", Pedro Almodovar rehashes a lot of themes and devices from his earlier films to create a pastiche that is pleasant enough but not as strong as his more daring and original works. Harry Caine (Lluis Homar) is a blind screenwriter who had been film director Mateo Blanco before he lost his sight. Now he dictates screenplays to his assistant Diego (Tamar Novas), the son of his longtime manager Judit (Blanco Portillo), who wishes Harry would write scripts for more popular genres. One day as aspiring filmmaker (Ruben Ochandiano) proposes that Harry collaborate on a script about a son who avenges himself on his detested father posthumously. That inspires Harry to tell Diego the story of how he fell in love and lost his sight 14 years earlier, a subject of which he has not spoken in all those years.

In 1994, Harry met Lena (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful mistress of financier Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gomez), when he directed her in her first film, a comedy called "Girls and Suitcases". They fell in love and incurred Ernesto's wrath. The film shifts back and forth, between 1994 and 2008, as Diego takes in the story, and Judit grows wary of what Harry might tell him. Harry and Lena's affair is deliberately clichéd, but I waited for Almodovar to give it his unique spin. Unfortunately, it never quite delivers. Lena seems more an object than a fully realized character, which might be fitting, as she is in Harry's memory. But as a main character, she is underwritten. Jose Luis Gomez is perfect as a man in the grip of obsession for Lena, so much so that I wish Ernesto had a more prominent role.

Sometimes Pedro Almodovar has a stroke of brilliance. And sometimes he seems to make movies because he likes making movies, even if he doesn't have anything fresh to contribute. I've seen too much of "Broken Embraces" in his other films, and it just never engages the audience. Harry and Lena's love has no spark. I could see the "surprises" coming a mile away. Some actions seem to lack motivation. Penelope Cruz is luminous. There's never any doubt as to why she's a movie star in Almodovar's films. Jose Luis Gomez is very good, and so Blanco Portillo would be if the writing for her character were a little better. I think those familiar with Almodovar's work are going to find this one stale. But I can't really recommend it to those new to Almodovar, as you would be better off seeing the great "All About My Mother" (1999) or, if you want noir, the labyrinthine noir homage/spoof "Bad Education" (2004). In Spanish with optional subtitles.

The DVD (Sony 2010): Bonus features include 3 deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer (2 min), and 4 featurettes. "The Cannibalistic Councillor" (7 min) is a scene from the fictional "Girls and Suitcases" movie, in which Chon, a woman of conservative politics and Councillor of Social Affairs, goes on about her sexual obsession and foot fetish. This is pure, hilarious Almodovar and not to be missed. There is another scene from the fictional movie among the deleted scenes. "Pedro Directs Penelope" (6 min, English subtitles) shows us what Almodovar is saying offscreen while two actresses play a scene. "On the Red Carpet: The New York Film Festival Closing Night" (3 min) has a few brief interviews. "Variety Q&A with Penelope Cruz" (6 min) is an interview of Cruz by Todd McCarthy. Subtitles are available for the film in English and French. Dubbing available in French.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "A film must be finished, even if it must be finished blind" - a seductive film noir about filmmaking and obsession, January 23, 2010

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Nathan Andersen "film lover, philosophy profe... (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Broken Embraces (DVD)

Harry Caine is a blind screenwriter, watched over by his former production assistant, Judit, and her son, Diego. His simple routine is upset when he hears of the death of a wealthy tycoon, and is later visited by the dead man's son in disguise. Pressed by Diego to explain, Harry recounts the tragic tale of how he, then known as Mateo Blanco, had fallen in love and had an affair with the tycoon's former lover, when she played a role in a film he was then directing, and of the accident that left him blind. The story itself is convoluted but clear enough - and I can't quite understand all the complaints about the story being confusing since film noir often tells a story within a story and keeps the audience guessing. Things are resolved in the end, and nearly every loose strand is tied. This one adds to the usual complexities a reflection on cinema, and two films within the film, and explores what it takes to revisit and remake the past so as to go on living.

It is a very poignant and at times quite amusing film about memory, lies, double lives, jealousy and revenge. Beautifully filmed with the eye for vibrant color and beauty that Almodovar is known for, the film also serves as a reminder of the changes in film technology that have occurred over the past few decades, and of the changes that have taken place in Almodovar's own style as a filmmaker, given that the film within the film suggests the more melodramatic and stylized work of his past. The film within a film bears a striking resemblance to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the film that placed Almodovar on the world stage as one of the most intriguing of auteurs. Perhaps not among his greatest masterpieces - like All About My Mother or Talk to Her (Hable con Ella), which are my personal favorites - but still a very entertaining and provocative new film by one of the greatest living filmmakers. Highly recommended.

Update: I just saw this again and was struck by Almodovar's mastery of conflicting moods in this film - nostalgia, melancholy, hilarity, rapture, tension and suspense. Somehow it manages to be all of these without becoming muddled. The film also manages to channel a wide range of associations with other films and filmmakers while remaining thoroughly in the grasp of Almodovar and his distinctive sensibilities. On this second viewing I detected hints of Antonioni (especially L'Avventura), Hitchcock (especially Vertigo), Michael Powell (with an explicit reference to Peeping Tom), and, of course, of Almodovar's own earlier work. A beautiful and intelligent film, that holds up on multiple viewings.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A great director running over too-familiar ground, February 18, 2010

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Muzzlehatch (the walls of Gormenghast) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Broken Embraces (DVD)

Harry Caine (Lluis Homar) is a blind screenwriter leading a quiet life in 2008 Madrid who is brought back - rather against his will - to contemplating the events of 1994 that changed his life when one of the people intimately involved in them, a rich industrialist named Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) has died. He starts to open up to his young friend Diego (Tamar Novas), the son of his agent Judit (Blanca Portillo) about Magdalena (Penélope Cruz), first an employee of Martel and then his mistress, who came into his life as a would-be actress and ended up much more. And through the telling, secrets involving Diego and his mother also come to light, tragedies and perhaps resolutions that had lain dormant for a decade and a half...

Although I don't have any truly enormous complaints about BROKEN EMBRACES, I don't have a whole lot that's really wonderful to say about it either. This feels to me like Almodóvar running on autopilot; all of the major themes of his past several films (haunting pasts, accidents and illnesses and disabilities, the life of the writer, the sacrifices women have to make) are in evidence here but there isn't much that's fresh or interesting in his handling of any of them, many of the revelations are telegraphed a mile away (if you can't figure out Diego's secret before the halfway point you probably haven't seen ten movies in your life), and the emotions seem muted and dry. There's little of his earlier trademark panache or humor, and the film seems to move relentlessly towards a fairly predetermined ending which comes off as too easy and not necessarily believable or even deserved..

Cruz and Homar probably come off the best in the central roles, maybe because they have the closest things to real characters to play, though even they feel underdeveloped. Gómez' Martel just seems like a possessive rich guy caricature, and none of the other characters register at all beyond the parts they play revolving around the central love triangle. Blanca Portillo, fantastic in VOLVER, seems wasted here - I don't have any complaints about her acting, but her role seems underwritten and bland. The director's use of color, even, strikes me as a little less impressive than usual and the film feels like it could have been set and shot just about anywhere, the feeling for place isn't all that strong.

I wasn't too too bored despite the 127 minutes that seemed like it could have easily been pared to 100 or less, so it wasn't a complete washout, and Penélope is as lovely as ever, so points there. But not enough, when all is said and done. Easily my least-favorite Almodóvar film so far; I don't mind that he keeps traveling the same roads of memory and loss -- many directors have made wonderful careers with less variation than he has typically offered in his recent work -- but I think this one just ended up a little too straight and narrow and the scenery just wasn't memorable enough. If you're a fan, it's worth a watch I guess; if you're new to the director, I'd recommend any of his other films since the late 90s before this one