Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.
Almodóvar's Julieta is a beautifully crafted melodrama anchored by two superb lead performances from Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte, who together portray the same woman across three decades with remarkable emotional continuity. The cinematography is vintage Almodóvar — saturated colors, precise compositions, and a visual language that turns domestic spaces into emotional landscapes. The plot, adapted from Alice Munro's stories, is structurally sound but somewhat slow-burning and emotionally withholding in ways that can feel more frustrating than artful. While Almodóvar's signature style elevates the material, the film lacks the full audacity of his best work and feels comparatively restrained within his filmography. The ending is particularly problematic — deliberately open-ended in a way that feels unearned rather than resonant, leaving the central emotional wound of mother-daughter estrangement unresolved in a manner that disappoints rather than provokes.