View Trailer:

Arguably, no other director working today tells women's stories like Almod�var. With his latest film the jury of the Cannes Film Festival seemed to agree on this point, awarding the prize for Best Actress not to a single woman, but to the entire female ensemble cast. It's well deserved.

Raimunda (Cruz) is a glamorous working class mum, holding down several jobs to support her daughter and unemployed husband. When she returns home one night to find said husband dead on the kitchen floor, killed by said daughter after he made sexual advances toward her, a whole series of events kicks off that ultimately leads to the reconciliation of old, secret hurts and the resolution of a family mystery. This whirlwind (literally) of a story takes in the return of Raimunda's mother Irene (Maura) from the dead, who hides herself with her other daughter Sole (Due�as), pretending to be a Russian refugee helping out in the illegal hair salon that Sole runs from her flat. (The reasons for this do become clear, but it's impossible to expound on them without giving the game away.) Moving between Madrid and the family's home village in La Mancha, where superstition still reigns supreme and the east wind (cause of a rather high rate of insanity in the village) blows relentlessly, the story covers three generations of women and a whole lot of skeletons. The males in this story, noticeable both by their relative absence and by their perversions, tend to meet a sticky but probably justifiable end.

Almod�var himself describes the film as Mildred Pierce meets Arsenic and Old Lace, which is not a bad analogy. It's a fast-paced tragicomic tale, almost farcical at times � especially in the scenes where Raimunda is trying to dispose of her husband's body � and gifted with a moving magic-realist touch at others. From the quip-filled script to the eloquent costumes, Volver cranks up the conventions of the melodrama to great effect, and in doing so is able to investigate the complex ties that bind female relationships so strongly. The title � 'Coming Back' � works in more ways than the literal return of Irene, with the women returning to the point in their lives that they've never got over, despite all appearances to the contrary.

Cruz is a revelation as Raimunda, strong, sassy and very vulnerable, while Carmen Maura makes a welcome return to her partnership with Almod�var, giving another outstanding performance as Irene. There is not a single weak performance however among the six women. Blanca Portillo deserves a special mention for her portrayal of Agustina, the family friend whose mother disappeared at roughly the same time as Raimunda and Sole's parents died in each other's arms, in a fire caused by the rampant east wind. She is desperately trying to find her mother, a search intensified by her cancer diagnosis, and tries to enlist Raimunda's help without realising that Raimunda has more pressing concerns � like a body to dispose of. It's a testament to their skill, as well as Almod�var's approach, that no matter how implausible the events become, it never feels anything other than entirely authentic and beautifully profound.