Broken Embraces

Fourteen years ago, a car accident robbed film director Mateo Blanco (Homar) of his eyesight and Lena (Cruz), the love of his life. He responds to this melodramatic misfortune by declaring Blanco dead and opting for the pseudonym Harry Caine. As the film opens, he puts this moniker on all the scripts he writes with assistance from Diego (Blanca Portillo), the son of his former production manager Judit (Tamar Novas). One night, following an accidental drug overdose, Deigo persuades Harry to reveal the whole sordid back story which, of course, turns out to be a classic Almodóvar tale of Hitchcockian obsession and a chilling reminder that people in noir films really ought to stay away from staircases.
The knowing movie winks are plentiful. This is easily  our favourite Iberian auteur’s most self-reflexive work in a decade; Penelope sports an Audrey Hepburn ’do throughout, Peeping Tom and Vertigo are duly saluted, Mateo toils on a regurgitated version of  Almodóvar’s own Women on the Verge on a Nervous Breakdown.
Fans of the director’s bold, gaudy oeuvre - boy, does he heart Douglas Sirk - will be most pleased.