"Volver" is a meeting of "Mildred Pierce" and "Arsenic and Old Lace", combined with the surrealistic naturalism of my fourth film, "¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!" ("What have I done to Deserve This?"), that is, Madrid and its lively working-class neighbourhoods, where the immigrants from the various Spanish provinces share dreams, lives and fortune with a multitude of ethnic groups and other races. At the heart of this social framework, three generations of women survive wind, fire and even death, thanks to goodness, audacity and a limitless vitality.— More here

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You do not want to miss this one.
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
There is no director alive more connected to the hearts, minds and mysteries of women than Spain's Pedro Almod—var. With a string of masterworks stretching from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown to All About My Mother and Talk to Her, Almodovar is a filmmaker worth following anywhere. In Volver ("return"), a movie that leaps off the screen to take its place in your dreams, the writer-director tells a ghost story that manages to include lust, incest, rape and murder. You'll laugh, too -- wildly, helplessly -- because to Almodovar, laughter is life...

A ridiculously entertaining melodrama
Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle
The story often hovers on the edge of soap opera. Lust is at the root of several generations of family tragedies, which are improbably linked together. Like the actors in the cast, who have been given all but invisible roles, the men in Raimunda's family somehow disappear. The women are left to do the best they can. That turns out to be enough to keep you watching through to the final twist -- as unlikely as everything else in this nonethelessextremely likable movie...

A film full of humor and affection.
Rex Reed
New York Observer
¡Hola! Pedro Almodóvar’s funny, scary and innovative Volver has been reviewed at so many film festivals that I’m not sure anyone wants to hear another word about it. But there is much to be said about Penélope Cruz, who has redeemed her reputation as an awkward, wooden actress in American films by proving just how enchanting she can be under the right conditions...

It often has a screwball spirit. The darker things are, the funnier.
Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor
Pedro Almodóvar has been a critics' darling for a long time. I championed his early movies, right up through "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," but I think most of his touted subsequent work, especially "All About My Mother" and "Bad Education," has been wildly overpraised. Having said this, it may seem perverse for me to call "Volver" his best film in a long time. It's certainly his most accessible...

video reviews by
david bruce
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