Critic Reviews
76
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
26(81%)
mixed
5(16%)
negative
1(3%)
Showing 32 Critic Reviews
100
A voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors, caressing Penelope Cruz, using the devices of a Hitchcock to distract us with surfaces while the sinister uncoils beneath. As it ravished me, I longed for a freeze frame to allow me to savor a shot.
91
Many of the characters go by two different names. So best advice for optimum viewing is, see Broken Embraces...twice.
91
Broken Embraces welds Douglas Sirk melodrama to the most gracefully unsettling elements of Alfred Hitchcock, wrapping both in the stylish, hushed elegance that’s become Almodóvar’s trademark since his mid-’90s reinvention.
91
In Almodóvar and Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time.
90
This really is Cruz's movie: Almodóvar is her North Star -- following his lead, she's always found her surest and most graceful footing as an actress.
90
Broken Embraces leaves the viewer in a contradictory state, a mixture of devastation and euphoria, amusement and dismay that deserves its own clinical designation. Call it Almodóvaria, a syndrome from which some of us are more than happy to suffer.
90
This movie is utterly irresistible.
88
Cruz exudes a sensual aura of mystery that holds you spellbound. And Almodóvar, a true poet of cinema, creates images -- horrifying and healing -- that live inside your head like a waking dream. You want to miss a movie like that? I didn’t think so.
88
That still makes Broken Embraces superior to at least 99 percent of the movies released in 2009. Run, don't walk.
88
The movie putters near the end, but it's a film lover's delight.
