What a knotty task, to detach instinctive overtures of motherly love from the traditional structures that perpetuate the restraining of gender roles, offering love freely without conforming. It is a balance beautifully communicated by the way Penélope Cruz pats the back of a child — the physical motion of her comforting hand an unlikely companion to a woman whose mind wanders through the mechanisms of sexist politics, raspily utters words of fierce protection and is unwilling to divorce herself from carnal sensuality while caring for the fruit of consummation. 

Alas, this is not “Parallel Mothers,” Pedro Almodóvar’s searing examination of the scars of Francoism and the political force of motherhood.

Continue reading ‘L’Immensità’ Review: Penélope Cruz Is Unable to Salvage Middling Italian Drama [Venice] at The Playlist.