Parallel Mothers

"Cruz is terrifically good value here - the film is essentially hers, and she navigates the plot's numerous emotional peaks and chasms like a seasoned Sherpa."

"A film that's bent by hardship and pierced by tragedy but it finally bows out with a message of hope."

"A ravishingly crafted work that again illustrates with ineffable beauty that no one uses the expressive power of color and design quite like Almodóvar."

"Straightforwardly sculpted and emotionally down-to-earth..."

"A movie of infinite tenderness..."

"Most will require a flat-bed truck stacked with Kleenex to make it through this one without the irritant of tear-based obfuscation."

"Offers many delights, one of which is that it ushers Almodóvar fans back to his comfortingly familiar milieu."

"From opening frame to closing titles, this is resoundingly, exquisitely, the Penélope Cruz show. But with a lesson in Spanish history."

"The movie is both bracing and consoling."

"A rare example of a director who can play the hits while still making the tune sound new."

"Feels almost like stepping back into a long conversation with an old friend; a dialogue of decades, told two hours at a time."

"A ghost story as well as a story of transference, which Pedro Almodóvar understands to be one in the same."

"A deeply political example of what is lost when we have forgotten-and what is achieved when we fight to remember."