Volver: Almodovar's Paean to Women

Movie lovers everywhere let out a collective gasp the morning Academy Award nominees were announced: where was Pedro Almodovar's beautiful, complex paean to earth mothers everywhere, Volver?

While Penelope Cruz has been winning raves for her earthy, fierce turn as Raimundo, de facto family matriarch after her mother's passing, the film itself was shut-out of all other Oscar categories. Particularly glaring was its omission from the Best Foreign Film category. Prior to the announcement, most critics believed Almodovar's homage to the wisdom and enduring strength of women was a shoe-in for a nomination here, if not a win.

Melodrama without self-pity, comedy without camp, Volver deftly weaves a narrative filled with life's depressing and mundane realities and turns it into a celebration. Murder, death, sexual assault, poverty? In lesser hands, this would be a disaster of epic proportions. For Almodovar, it's a chance to display how the hearts of women refuse to remain dormant.

When Raimundo's daughter is forced to protect herself from the advances of her own father everything good in both their lives takes a turn. Toss in a spectral mother, anxious sister, lack of income, deceased aunt and Raimundo has more than she can handle. How to fix everything all at once, shelter and care for the ones you love and look like a screen goddess circa 1950 the entire time?

That's the gist of Almodovar's story: part fairy-tale fizzy confection, part tear-jerker, part black comedy and completely, uniquely compelling. Fitting that Cervantes' beloved La Mancha serves as the film's sumptuous backdrop. Land of whimsy and vigor, its quixotic nature emphasized by the use of vivid colors, the town is both a crumbling semi-urban trap and, outside city limits, pastorally beautiful. Like Raimunda, it struggles to rectify itself with the duality of what is real and what is most fervently desired.

Both manage to strike a balance, in such sturdy directing hands. Cruz has never looked more radiant. Nor has she ever transcended Hollywood's eternal desire to Americanize her as well as she does in Volver. Turned out in the most tempestuous and glorious shades of red in nearly every scene, she radiates heat, energy and maternal instinct, by turns. Yet its her acting ability that appears most remarkable; she conjures the image of a young Sophia Loren or Rita Hayworth, beyond control or full understanding of any man, yet remarkably accessible and involved with the women in her family. One gets the sense that Raimundo would not only walk across hot coals for her daughter, but she would carry a basket of freshly baked muffins across with her.

Equally inspired is Lola Dueñas as her sister, Sole. Terrified of ghosts and spirits, her nerves are pushed to the breaking point by the very idea of their mother's spectral visitations. When finally visited by same the effect is touching, dramatic and comical. None of these female familial bonds come easily. Being a woman is a challenge, not only in the day-to-day struggle for survival, but in the quest to quell internal demons and repair the emotional damage families singularly inflict. Almodovar understands these challenges, and uses Volver to unravel some of the mystery of what it means to be a woman in today's society. Pity that the Academy didn't seem to understand quite as well what this quirky, fabulous movie manages to achieve.