‘Last week, as the 78^th Venice Film Festival came to a close, Penelope Cruz received the Best Actress Award for her performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest melodrama, Parallel Mothers. In the film, Cruz plays Janis, a 40-year-old single mother raising a daughter in Madrid who receives some life-changing news, and critics have praised her performance as “sure-footed”, “astonishing”, and “formidable”. This latest film is the seventh Almodóvar and Cruz have made together. Previous outings have given us the loyal and criminal mother of Volver, the young nun of All About My Mother, and, most recently, Cruz’s tender performance as Jacinta in Almodóvar’s magnum opus Pain and Glory.’

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Read the full column here.