Broken Embraces
Also known as Los abrazos rotos
2009 film by Pedro Almodóvar
Film · TMDB
7.2Harry 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 real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.
Released: 2009-03-18127 minDir: Pedro AlmodóvarDrama, Romance, ThrillerBudget: $18.0MBox office: $31.0M
Cast
- Penélope Cruz as Lena
- Lluís Homar as Mateo Blanco / Harry Caine
- Blanca Portillo as Judit García
- José Luis Gómez as Ernesto Martel
- Rubén Ochandiano as Ray X
- Tamar Novas as Diego
Themes
- jealousy
- madrid, spain
- obsession
Article
Broken Embraces (Spanish: Los abrazos rotos) is a 2009 Spanish romantic drama film written, produced, and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Almodóvar regulars, it stars Lluís Homar as a blind Madrilenian screenwriter who recalls his tragic love for Lena, played by Penélope Cruz, the deceased lead actress in his last directional feature Girls and Suitcases, who was also the mistress of a powerful, obsessive businessman (José Luis Gómez). Blanca Portillo co-stars as his agent Judit, while Tamar Novas portrays her son and Caine's co-writer Diego.
Inspired by darkness and by a photo of a couple that Almodóvar took of El Golfo beach in Lanzarote in the late 1990s, the film serves as an homage to filmmaking, cinema and its various film genres. Stylistically, the film has been described as a hybrid of film noir and melodrama. Thematically, Broken Embraces addresses themes like voyeurism, repression, prostitution, death, vengeance, fixation, illness, and drugs.