Parallel Mothers

The IMDb synopsis for 'Parallel Mothers' reads, "The story of two mothers who give birth the same day." I think this could use some work. It really doesn't sell the film at all. In fact it makes it sound painfully dull and uninteresting. You don't have to give anything away about the story. You just need to hint that there will be some reason for drama and to justify a film being made about this story.

The film is a strange one. There are some pretty serious things that happen, however the film seems to be doing its utmost to have characters under-react to everything. There is one particularly shocking moment in this film that I thought was going to trigger all kinds of hell. But it just kind of got an open-mouthed shock look for a little while and was then moved on from. They didn't even come back to it much at any point. There are numerous smaller occurrences like this too. It's very strange.

The drama was enough to carry a movie though and it did enough to keep me interested. The runtime pushed itself 15-20 minutes longer than needed. The whole epilogue sequence didn't really do anything for me and felt very unconnected to the rest of the film. There were better and more powerful ways they could have wrapped the film up for sure.

Penelope Cruz is very good as always. She has more than enough charm and charisma to carry a film by herself. She certainly payed a part in keeping the film afloat. This isn't one I'd go out of my way to recommend, but it's harmless and might be to some of your liking. 6/10.