Volver (2006)
Three years after Soledad’s parents died in a fire, she discovers the ghost of her mother Irene while visiting her aunt Paula. When Soledad returns home, Irene’s ghost moves in with her.
Meanwhile, Soledad’s sister Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) comes home to find her daughter Paula has killed her father during an attempted rape. Raiumunda calmly hides the corpse in the freezer and devises a plan to dispose of it.
Eventually, Raimunda encounters Irene’s ghost and several long-buried secrets are exposed. The younger Paula is the product of an abusive, incestuous relationship between Raimunda and her own father. Raimunda blamed Irene for failing to protect her, but when she discovered the abuse, Irene set fire to their house and killed her husband. The ashes everyone assumed were Irene’s actually belonged to his mistress. Irene did not die in the fire, but has been living with her senile sister Paula since.
This is a film about the effects of secrets and how we deal with uncomfortable realities. We hide them, we lie about them, we refuse to accept things for what they are, believing what we want to believe.
Penelope Cruz is better here than in Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008), the movie which won her an Oscar two years later.
I liked this movie, but it would have benefited from having at least one non-evil male character. The film suggests all men are sex-obsessed lunatics who poison every relationship, superfluous at best and possibly the source of all evil.