Banderas excels in portrait of ailing filmmaker

Pain and Glory is the latest film from celebrated Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, and it’s clearly his most personal.

Antonio Banderas in a scene from Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory. Picture: Universal Pictures.

Pain and Glory is the latest film from Spain’s most celebrated director since Luis Bunuel, Pedro Almodovar, and it’s clearly his most personal. It’s a movie about a film director who is going through a late-life crisis, one that triggers memories of the past, of his mother, and of his first love.

Antonio Banderas, who won the Best Actor prize in Cannes in May for this role, plays Salvador Mallo, a famous filmmaker who is beset with so many ailments that he’s unable to work. He lives as a recluse in his impressively decorated Madrid apartment, suffering from tinnitus and crippling back pain and, as a result, depression. He also has diminished appetite, which causes his personal assistant, Mercedes (Nora Navas) to be concerned for him. He finds relief at the swimming pool of his club, which is where we first meet him.

A chance encounter with Zulema (Cecilia Roth), an actress friend from the past, leads to a conversation about one of his early films, Sabor, which, 30 years after its original release, has just been restored by the Madrid Cinematheque and is about to be given a gala screening. Salva recalls that, at the time he made the film, he was disappointed with it because of the performance of the leading actor, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia); the pair, who had been friends, had quarrelled and haven’t spoken since, but now Salva is moved to seek him out.

The initially awkward atmosphere when the two men meet at Alberto’s house in the suburbs is alleviated by the use of some illegal substance, which seems to help Salva’s pain. It also triggers memories that go even further back, back to when Salva was a child (played by Asier Flores) living with his beloved mother, Jacinta (Penelope Cruz), after the departure of his father. But the most vivid memory involves Eduardo (Cesar Vicente), a builder and handyman, who unwittingly had a tremendous impact on the young Salva.

Once Salva has started delving into the past, he becomes obsessed with his memories. And then, coincidentally, he is reunited with Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia), his Argentine lover of 30 years earlier. Federico, who lives in Buenos Aires with his wife and family, is making a brief visit to Madrid. And while all this is going on, Salva’s beloved mother (Julieta Serrano) is dying.

Since the 1980s Almodovar’s films have been produced by a company run by his brother, Agustin, called El Deseo (The Desire) and the name of the company makes a great deal of sense in the context of the autobiographical elements of Pain and Glory. Some of the director’s best films have been purposely melodramatic, but here he tones down the mood to present a painfully candid autobiography. Not all of it may be true — the conditions in which the young Salvador lived with his mother are fictionalised — but for all those cinemagoers who have been enthralled by Almodovar’s work over the years this very personal movie, with its superbly pitched central performance by Banderas, will be immensely rewarding.

Pain and Glory (Dolor y Gloria) (MA15+)

★★★★½

Limited national release from Thursday

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OUTBACK ISOLATION SPRINGS TO LIFE IN MOVING FAMILY TALE

Rhae-Kye Waites in Emu Runner.

Emu Runner was filmed in and around the sparsely populated outback town of Brewarrina, NSW. Writer-director Imogen Thomas knows the isolated community well, having set her 2008 short film, Mixed Bag, there. The director’s first feature is a modest but immensely attractive insight into the world of an eight-year-old Ngemba girl named Gemma, who is wonderfully portrayed by non-professional actor Rhae-Kye Waites.

Gemma lives with her father Jay Jay (Wayne Blair), a garbage collector, and her mother Darlene (Maurial Spearim), as well as siblings Ecka (Rodney McHughes) and Val (Letisha Boney). They are a close family, and Darlene instructs her children in Aboriginal customs and heritage, telling them that the emu is “our animal”.

But a sudden and unexpected bereavement threatens to shatter the family, and in the aftermath of this loss the children are thrown off-balance. Gemma starts playing truant to spend time in the bush with an emu she’s attempting to befriend, while Ecka’s interest in a white classmate leads to trouble with the local policeman, Stan (Rob Carlton). After Jay Jay gets into a fight, Gemma is taken in hand by social worker Heidi Goodell (Georgia Blizzard), a well-meaning woman from Sydney.

This simple but evocative yarn is beautifully told by Thomas and her cast, which is composed of a mixture of professionals, like Blair, and gifted amateurs. The cinematography by Michael Gibbs proves to be a major asset, beautifully capturing the essence of this dusty little town and the dry landscape that surrounds it. The last part of the film, in which Heidi demonstrates her lack of knowledge about the country and Gemma comes into her own as a resourceful and courageous little kid, is especially affecting. Emu Runner was clearly a labour of love for everyone who worked on it. It’s a small film but one that can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.

Emu Runner (PG)

★★★★

Limited release from Thursday

 

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A scene from Brittany Runs a Marathon.

Brittany (Jillian Bell) is an overweight young woman who has moved from Philadelphia to New York and lives in the apartment she shares with her svelte friend, Gretchen (Alice Lee). Brittany works in the front of house of an off-Broadway theatre, and spends most of her modest income having fun. But a visit to the doctor brings sobering news: Brittany is told her blood pressure is a serious worry and that she needs to lose a great deal of weight as soon as possible.

She can’t afford to become a member of a gym and, to begin with, the idea of jogging around the block is more than she can cope with. But she receives encouragement from Catherine (Michaela Watkins), a tenant who lives in the same building and, through her, meets Seth (Micah Stock), who is about as keen on exercise as Brittany.

The three friends begin to exercise together and, after a while, decide to enter the New York Marathon, which to Brittany seems like a hopeless pipedream. But, once she’s fired up, she becomes determined to achieve her goal.

The real Brittany – seen in photographs at the conclusion of the film – is a friend of the movie’s writer-director, Paul Downs Colaizzo. One of the positive elements of the movie is that she’s not presented as an idealised figure. She’s abrasive and even unpleasant at times, particularly in a scene in which, very much the worse for drink, she abuses a woman who is even more obese than she ever was, horrifying her sister, Cici (Kate Arrington), and brother-in-law Demetrius (Lil Rel Howery).

There are plenty of setbacks for Brittany along the way, but the title of the film leaves no doubt that she’ll eventually run the marathon, which is no small achievement. Bell is terrific in the title role and the film as a whole is a confident combination of the amiable and the uncompromising.

Brittany Runs a Marathon (M)

Limited national release

★★★½