Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar, 2016)

Almodóvar goes back here to making serious films, or so it seems, because towards the end you realise you've been suckered into a Sirkian melodrama after all. As almost ever, it's driven by strong female leads and it's fairly redundant to state that a gay male director has, over the years, proved one of the best exponents of fully-rounded women as protagonists.
The story here, which revolves around a middle-aged woman trying to understand what led to her daughter's disappearance from her life decades ago, takes us back to before the birth of her daughter and then goes on through the key stages since, trying to explain both to herself and the viewer why what transpired did as it happened. It's visually sumptuous and keeps on promising a resolution, but that never comes and while you can admire individual components of the whole, it leaves virtually no coherent emotional impact. And that's something you would never have accused Almodóvar of before, even with his riotous comedies.

5/10