I'm a big fan of Almodovar, and was really looking fwd to Volver, but i found it unengaging. The story, the plot, left me wondering if Volver had been filmed with the first draft.

I sat there wondering when it would get interesting. Very tame for Pedro, lacking his inventive touches, it (gulp) read like a soap opera.

Sorry k/c.

I will certainly agree that it was tame for Pedro. Almost naturalistic, which has been uncharacteristic for him. I especially loved the touches of small town Spain vs. lower middle class Madrid. It's a country that I know very well, and they are a people that I feel that I know (to the extent that you can "know" any people), so I found his little insights about them charming. Eg., the funeral, with all the old ladies in black waving their black fans like so many butterflies.

He still brings the shocks, but they are presented in a more matter of fact way. After all, adultery, murder, arson, incest should still be shocking, neh?

The elements of Almodovar's black humour were still there, but it felt phoned in, a little script by numbers.

'Hey, we need a wacky murder, and some sexually suggestive stuff, like shooting Penelope's breasts from above.'

Of course, I don't mean to insult Almodovar by suggesting that he wld actually operate in such a lazy fashion, but the result on the screen suggested to me that he perhaps settled for familiar moves, without developing them.

Hmmm, I still can't quite put my finger on why I felt it a minor failure, cept that script wise, I kept hearing the words, 'first draft' screaming in my mind.