Julieta

Based on stories by Alice Munro, Julieta follows the title character (Emma Suárez) as she embarks on a quest to track down the daughter she hasn’t seen in over a decade – with the movie also detailing the character’s exploits as a younger woman (where she’s played by Adriana Ugarte). Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar delivers a mostly rewarding picture that’s nevertheless saddled with a few lulls, with, especially, the film suffering from a context-free opening stretch that prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to the central character. It’s only as Julieta moves into its mostly-flashback midsection that it becomes more and more absorbing, as Almodóvar does a superb job of transforming the younger protagonist into a compelling, three-dimensional figure – with the filmmaker’s willingness to embrace the more salacious aspects of Munro’s stories paving the way for an increasingly engrossing melodrama. There’s little doubt, as well, that the effectiveness of the narrative’s set-in-the-past portions increase the impact of its contemporary sequences, with the increasingly compelling vibe certainly perpetuated by the strength of both Suárez and Ugarte’s work as the conflicted Julieta. The end result is an unquestionably above-average effort from an often exasperatingly uneven filmmaker, with the movie’s refreshingly (and appropriately) brisk running time ensuring that it never quite wears out its welcome (although, by that same token, the abrupt ending is a little tough to swallow).

*** out of ****