Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) (Broken Hugs) poster & wallpaper

Alejo Sauras, Blanca Portillo, Carlos Leal

A man writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years before, he was in a brutal car crash on the island of Lanzarote. In the accident, he not only lost his sight, he also lost Lena, the love of h...( read more  read more... )is life.

This man uses two names: Harry Caine, a playful pseudonym with which he signs his literary works, stories and scripts, and Mateo Blanco, his real name, with which he lives and signs the film he directs. After the accident, Mateo Blanco reduces himself to his pseudonym, Harry Caine. If he can’t direct films he can only survive with the idea that Mateo Blanco died on Lanzarote with his beloved Lena.

In the present day, Harry Caine lives thanks to the scripts he writes and to the help he gets from his faithful former production manager, Judit García, and from Diego, her son, his secretary, typist and guide.

Since he decided to live and tell stories, Harry is an active, attractive blind man who has developed all his other senses in order to enjoy life, on a basis of irony and self-induced amnesia. He has erased from his biography any trace of his first identity, Mateo Blanco. One night Diego has an accident and Harry takes care of him (his mother, Judit, is out of Madrid and they decide not to tell her anything so as not to alarm her). During the first nights of his convalescence, Diego asks him about the time when he answered to the name of Mateo Blanco, after a moment of astonishment Harry can’t refuse and he tells Diego what happened fourteen years before with the idea of entertaining him, just as a father tells his little child a story so that he’ll fall asleep.

The story of Mateo, Lena, Judit and Ernesto Martel is a story of “amour fou”, dominated by fatality, jealously, the abuse of power, treachery and a guilt complex. A moving and terrible story, the most expressive image of which is the photo of two lovers embracing, torn into a thousand pieces.

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70% liked it

10,329 ratings

Critics

81% liked it

62 critics

R, 1 hr. 45 min.

Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Release Date: November 20, 2009

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Flixster Reviews (646)

  • mrpopcorn
    December 8, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "Ernesto, I've just been with the man I love. I'm happier than I've ever been, because he loves me too. No need to spy on us anymore"

    Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his...( read more) real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.

    REVIEW

    Almodóvar's direction in this film is full of passion, and his precise work is mostly noticed on the extraordinary performances from the cast.Penélope Cruz is truly amazing, and the same applies to Lluís Homar.José Luis Gómez and Blanca Portillo also bring perfect works.

    I also enjoyed the references Almodóvar made to various classics of worldwide cinema very much.The references I am talking about are not only found on the story (which rounds on the world of cinema), but also on naughty moments which duplicate famous scenes from classic films (I recognized homages to directors Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Luis Buñuel).However, Broken Embraces is not only a "greatest hits".Those homages are perfectly integrated to the phenomenal screenplay, which has a lot of impact and intensity.

    Broken Embraces is a true masterpiece, and it deserves a very enthusiastic recommendation, because this is one of those joys the seventh art brings to us on some occasions.I think this is Almodóvar's most mature and polished work to date, and I am very interested in seeing how his career will follow after this extraordinary film.
  • her69eyes
    December 1, 2009
    her69eyes
    It's been a terrific decade for the great Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, who, prior to "Broken Embraces", blessed the film world with "All About My Mother", "Talk to Her", "Bad Education", and "Volver". Each work is tremendously moving and lusciously detailed, all completely dis...( read more)tinct from one another. Almodóvar's latest, however, never takes on a life of it's own. Like all of his films, it feels enormously Almodóvarian - unfortunately here, however, it fails to feel like much more.

    Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar) is a blind ex film director who now writes screenplays under the alias of Harry Caine. One day, an attractive young man approaches him with a pitch. It turns out that the boy (Rubén Ochandiano) is the son of Mateo's former lover's husband (José Luis Gómez).

    His lover was Lena (Penélope Cruz), a gorgeous actress who appears in a film-within-the-film that's eerily reminiscent of Almodóvar's "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". Her current whereabouts are made unclear throughout most of the picture, as the only remaining woman in Mateo's life is Judit (Blanca Portillo), his former production designer.

    The plot, as typical with Almodóvar, is a convoluted, self-reflective melodrama. Almodóvar is also dead-set on expressing his love for cinema - at one point, a character goes through a video collection and lists the names: everything from "Fanny and Alexander" to "Magnificent Obsession" is mentioned. The latter film contains one of the more blatant homages in "Broken Embraces" - crash-induced blindness.

    Although the film is charming company, it's dramatically uninvolving. This, perhaps, is due to the nonlinear timeline and the slew of supporting characters. The screen is just too crowded, and what's unusual for Almodóvar is that none of these characters feel fleshed out or even mildly interesting. The gay son of Lena's husband, for instance, appears in each timeline and is arguably a hindrance to both. Despite such drawbacks however, the film is masterfully performed by the two leads and, as to be expected from the director, looks gorgeous throughout.
  • McKittrick
    September 10, 2009
    McKittrick
    Oh sweet misery. Oh joy of joyless joy. Oh such profound disappointment. Immaculately executed but dramatically muted and actually (shock-horror!) a tad boring.
    I miss the camp and the melodrama... I miss Carmen Maura!
    Well, at least the hysterical cameos, from Chus Lampreave an...( read more)d Rossy de Palma, helped to ease the bitter-sweet broodings of my cine-nostalgia and stopped me pining for Almodovar's original muse for five minutes or so.
  • mvieaddict
    October 2, 2009
    mvieaddict
    Image and video hosting by TinyPic
    Wow, Abrazos Rotos, was an incredible movie. This is the way I like to watch my movies. Almodovar has always made interesting movies...( read more), some might have come over as soaps, but they were masterpieces. It's a fabulous movie that had several flash backs scenes about vengeance, grief, suffer and love. Sometimes the movie seems a little complicated, but everything will be clear at the end. Like other Almodovar's movies,you will experience jealousy,secrets, passion and death. Penelope Cruz acting was amazing..
  • g1pp4l
    September 27, 2009
    g1pp4l
    Almodóvar's typical shit, but this time trying to be serious. Doesn't work. Most of the actors do a fucking terrible job (except maybe Lluís Homar, but his character isn't good). No need to watch it.
  • babubhaut
    December 5, 2009
    babubhaut
    click for review
  • olumiere
    December 4, 2009
    olumiere
    Mais um exemplar interessante para a filmografia de Almodóvar.
  • Phonex
    November 30, 2009
    Phonex
    Broken lives, broken kisses, broken stories, broken happiness, broken everything.

    The best Amodovar I have ever seen. Other two : All about my mother, 1999 and Talk to her , 2002.
  • rubiocossio
    November 29, 2009
    rubiocossio
    Todo lo que he visto de Almodóvar hasta hoy me ha gustado....Esta la veré y luego les digo...
  • betyfasto
    November 28, 2009
    betyfasto
    me gustaría mucho verla...pero cómo lo hago?

View All Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) (Broken Hugs) Reviews

Critic Reviews

November 20, 2009
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

Mr. Almodóvar's love of movies informs every frame of this beautiful film. When Harry's fingers explore the dotted landscape of a Braille script, they bespeak the writer's unbroken embrace of language... full review

November 19, 2009
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Leaves the viewer in a contradictory state, a mixture of devastation and euphoria, amusement and dismay that deserves its own clinical designation. full review

November 19, 2009
Armond White, The New York Press

Almodóvar lost his nerve when he acquired expensive technique. Inspired by Buñuel and De Palma, he used to match them. Now, his once underground satires are just expensive tearjerkers. full review

November 19, 2009
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Cruz doesn't coast on her beauty in Broken Embraces, and she has the kind of role that can be difficult to flesh out. full review

November 16, 2009
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

Seems a touch too long, too airless, and too content with its own contrivances to stir the heart. full review

September 21, 2009
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Old-hat tropes under a superficially stunning veneer. full review

August 29, 2009
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

Can Pedro Almodóvar make a bad film? The answer seems to be no, even when he might be accused of trying. Broken Embraces has a mazy plot in which a poor director would lose himself fast. full review

View more Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) (Broken Hugs) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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