Parallel Mothers

Star Penelope Cruz won best actress at this year’s Venice Film Festival for her performance as Janis, one of two very different women who meet and become intimately connected in a maternity ward as they prepare to give birth. The latest film from Spanish master Pedro Almodovar may engage a familiar plot device, but goes for something more serious than the bawdy comic tone that is the director’s signature. The Guardian calls it “an autopsy of dark Spanish history dressed up as a bright baby shower.”