How much of all this we are meant to take as strict autobiography is anyone’s guess, but however loosely “Pain and Glory” may play with the facts, it never feels less than truthful. As in “Julieta,” the moving and underappreciated picture he made before this one, Almodóvar has learned to work with a new economy: The colors are more somber and muted than usual (which doesn’t make the images any less eye-popping), and the usual incursions into farce and melodrama have been pared away.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 18, 2019 20:47 UTC