Parallel Mothers Is a Humanist Tale of Mistaken Moms

The initial premise of Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas) sounds as though it could be a lukewarm comedy: two mothers find themselves having their babies at the same time in the same hospital, and their babies are accidentally switched. They don’t find out until later and treat the discovery with an uneasy somberness rooted in the fears of unearthing such a secret. But it becomes more than just a case of mistaken babies—Pedro Almodóvar‘s latest film is a deep questioning of family, legacy, and a dark past that must be confronted.

Penélope Cruz in Parallel Mothers. El Deseo, photo by Iglesias Más/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

It helps that before we even get to the hospital, we get to know a lot about our central character, Janis Martinez (Penélope Cruz), a photographer who finds herself in a steamy relationship with the married Arturo (Israel Elejalde). While Janis is in love with Arturo, she’s also interested in the help he can offer in discovering the graves of her family, left unmarked in Spain. This is such a huge deal for her that her pregnancy doesn’t seem to be an issue—it may be for Arturo, but Janis is willing to raise the child on her own. She’ll have help from some of her family but won’t place any of the responsibilities on her lover.

Her child’s birth proceeds along with that of her maternity-ward roommate, the younger Ana (Milena Smit). They get along well with their beds right next to each other. Both their pregnancies finish without issue. It’s only once they go their separate ways that things become complicated. Janis learns the truth about her baby, but it happens it at the worst time. She has not only a tragic reconnection with Ana but also a passionate relationship that further complicates her fluctuating feelings of love and despair.

Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit as Janis and Ana. El Deseo, photo by Iglesias Más/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Cruz is in top form for this juicy role. She brings a lot of determination to the depiction of a woman who knows what she wants but may not be ready for what she discovers. When she becomes pregnant, she has a plan. When she discovers that her baby may not be her own, she finds herself unable to confront the truth. Her relationship with Ana has a mixture of the bittersweet and the passionate. Equal credit needs to be paid to Milena Smit, who undergoes one heck of an arc, starting off as an unsure single mother and becoming more independent and determined. Her chemistry with Cruz is also immaculate, especially the few scenes where the two connect over cooking.

It should come as no surprise that director Pedro Almodóvar still has a pitch-perfect touch for introspective and personal films. He creates the somber unease of Parallel Mothers by getting up close and personal. When Janis is working on a photo shoot, the camera lingers as she finds the right shots, the world melting away into a series of snapshots. When she’s discovering the results of her secretive paternity tests, there’s an almost operatic mood to her conflict of emotions. The film never paints this grappling of the past with one shade but instead a massive gradient spanning from contentment to terror.

I also really dug the overarching plot of Janis searching for the unmarked graves of her lost family. Though it seems like a long-term plan that remains in the background, it becomes such a brilliant relation to the situation regarding history. After all the central drama has unfolded, the sobering final scene relates to this aspect of looking back into the past, and it reminds us how powerful closure can be and how short time our on this planet is.

El Deseo, photo by Iglesias Más/Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Almodóvar once more delivers brilliantly humanist drama bursting with passionate romance and gut-wrenching sadness. Every scene hits such pitch-perfect notes that it’s impressive how easily it grips its premise. Even after so many movies, the filmmaker hasn’t lost his touch and continues to get some of the best performances out of top-tier actors like Cruz, shining brightly in one of her finest roles.