Pain and Glory

Pedro Almodóvar's most autobiographical film, Pain and Glory is heavy on the pain and light on the glory. A melancholy Antonio Banderas plays Salvador Mallo, a Spanish filmmaker suffering from the same array of agonizing ailments as Almodóvar himself, with the addition of an opioids addiction that Almodovar has said is fictional.

Worn down by his physical suffering and feeling creatively tapped out, Salvador begins to reconnect aimlessly with people from his past, beginning with an actor (Asier Etxeandia) he alienated years earlier — a situation loosely based on Almodovar’s relationship with Banderas, with the addition of a drug habit and the omission of Banderas’ international fame. One reunion leads to another, with a former lover, and so on. The present day sequences are discomforting yet somewhat drained of feeling, as Salvador's malaise seems to infuse Almodovar’s filmmaking.

This is likely intentional, because it allows these scenes to contrast with the more vibrant flashbacks to the boyhood memories that are also bubbling up within Salvador, most of them revolving around his first crush, at age 10, on a hunky laborer he taught to read and write.

The childhood sequences are colorful and enthralling, in no small part because the radiant Penélope Cruz portrays Salvador's mother. They also take place in a distinct and cinematic setting — a home in a whitewashed cavern with a skylight open to the sun and rain that’s lyrically real and metaphorically surreal at the same time.

By the end, past and present merge in the discovery of a poignant drawing, and the fragmented movie itself is suddenly made whole. Redemption is suggested, if not guaranteed. This is, after all, an Almodóvar film.

Grade: B-plus. Rated R. Opens November 15 at Grail Moviehouse.

(Photo: Sony Pictures Classics)