Broken Embraces
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: November 20, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors, caressing Penelope Cruz, using the devices of a Hitchcock to distract us with surfaces while the sinister uncoils beneath. As it ravished me, I longed for a freeze frame to allow me to savor a shot. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Many of the characters go by two different names. So best advice for optimum viewing is, see Broken Embraces...twice. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Broken Embraces welds Douglas Sirk melodrama to the most gracefully unsettling elements of Alfred Hitchcock, wrapping both in the stylish, hushed elegance that’s become Almodóvar’s trademark since his mid-’90s reinvention. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
In Almodóvar and Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
This really is Cruz's movie: Almodóvar is her North Star -- following his lead, she's always found her surest and most graceful footing as an actress. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Broken Embraces leaves the viewer in a contradictory state, a mixture of devastation and euphoria, amusement and dismay that deserves its own clinical designation. Call it Almodóvaria, a syndrome from which some of us are more than happy to suffer. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
This movie is utterly irresistible. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Cruz exudes a sensual aura of mystery that holds you spellbound. And Almodóvar, a true poet of cinema, creates images -- horrifying and healing -- that live inside your head like a waking dream. You want to miss a movie like that? I didn’t think so. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
That still makes Broken Embraces superior to at least 99 percent of the movies released in 2009. Run, don't walk. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The movie putters near the end, but it's a film lover's delight. Read full review
80
EmpireKim Newman
Gorgeous and seductive, if pitched at Almodóvar fans and perhaps a touch long. Those drawn by Cruz’s divadom will wonder why it takes so long to get to her -- though she is wholly dazzling when it does. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Mr. Almodóvar's love of movies informs every frame of this beautiful film. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
The writer-director is up to his old tricks, creating an onion of an experience -- a movie within a movie within a movie, irony in each layer, poignancy that stings and whimsy that bites. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This melancholy romance is the first Almodovar feature I’ve ever really liked, an expertly fashioned melodrama that steers mercifully clear of his usual puckishness and star-mongering. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
At times, it looks as though Broken Embraces might be the love child of Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock, with its dramatic broad strokes, iconic reds, and teasing narrative clues. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
As a film that pays tribute to vintage '50s Hollywood, Broken Embraces is a visual delight. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
During vast sections of Broken Embraces, I wished I was watching the actual old-time noirs instead of the miasmic concoction that Almodóvar has made from them. Read full review
75
Washington PostJan Stuart
Amid all this dazzling artifice, the film's most authentic source of power comes from its star. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
At 128 minutes – Almodovar's longest film to date – Broken Embraces is an easy film to bid farewell to. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
It’s both ridiculous and ridiculously romantic, which is an apt description of a work shaped like a heart and structured like a pretzel. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
A melodrama painted in the saffron-and-turmeric hues of a Bollywood musical, Broken Embraces is the Spanish filmmaker's homage to Hitchcock's "Vertigo," that moody account of obsessional love and double lives. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Broken Embraces is stylish and sly, an engaging exercise that gives us less than meets the eye. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
This is a pretty minor film from the filmmaker. It feels like more of an exercise in plotting and movie nostalgia than a story about real people. Read full review
70
VarietyJonathan Holland
A restless, rangy and frankly enjoyable genre-juggler that combines melodrama, comedy and more noir-hued darkness than ever before, the picture is held together by the extraordinary force of Almodovar’s cinematic personality. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
With this gorgeously melodramatic ode to cinema, the filmmaker comes dangerously close to losing himself inside his celluloid dreams -- and leaving the audience behind. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The final half-hour of Broken Embraces is littered with facile contrivances and plot turns worthy of a soap opera. It's almost mystifying, and more than a little frustrating, to watch a movie cruising at such a high level suddenly suffer a complete breakdown and lose too much altitude. Read full review
60
Village VoiceRob Nelson
Indeed, three decades into his career as a name-brand fashioner of zesty soapers, Spanish cinema's most beloved export could direct un film de Almodóvar with his eyes shut and still get a rise out of his fans. So who could blame the matador for letting the bull run the show this time? Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Watching the new film is like getting upsettingly full on insubstantial tapas: You would never say no to just one more, but there’s better. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The notable lack of chemistry between Cruz and Homar is a crucial absence in a film about all-consuming romance. And though each part is great fun to watch, the whole feels unfinished. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Seems a touch too long, too airless, and too content with its own contrivances to stir the heart. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
It all adds up to an entertaining combination of suspense and melodrama, a movie that doesn't cohere too well - and veers toward the silly in its more-obvious plot mechanics. Read full review
38
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
Almodovar lets his movie become boring, and insufferably so. Read full review
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