By Austin Henderson
Julieta opens with a flamenco guitarist plucking a haunting minimalist melody. Setting the tone for the emotional trajectory of the film, the soundtrack combines traditional Spanish music with modern influences, always keeping the viewers’ senses heightened in its sparseness.
This idea of minimalism extends to the life of the protagonist Julieta (played by Emma Suárez and Adriana Agarte). We are introduced to a middle-age Julieta as she packs up her apartment in Madrid in expectation of a move to Portugal with her lover, Lorenzo. Even filled with the mess of boxes, we see the emptiness of her flat. The sterility alludes to the lack of something lost and longed for, yet rarely acknowledged.
Grabbing a breath of air on the bustling street outside her flat, Julieta is greeted by a remnant of her past. Approaching her, a young woman introduces herself as Beatriz, the childhood friend of Julieta’s estranged daughter Antía.
The wound of the loss of her daughter reopened, Julieta breaks down and refuses to move with Lorenzo. Instead she stays in Madrid, moving back to the apartment she occupied before Antía left. Longing for contact from her daughter, she fears that if she moves, her daughter won’t be able to reach her if she relents after nearly 15 years of silence. Back in her old surroundings, she has a series of flashbacks of the losses in her life and how she has entered her current state of despair.
Traveling back in time roughly a quarter century, we see a young Julieta riding alone on a night train. A teacher of classical studies at the time, she clutches a book titled Greek Tragedies. On the train, she meets Xoan, a handsome fisherman whose wife is at death’s door, her status declining after years in a coma.
Julieta falls quickly for Xoan, entering a love affair as his wife dies. Her job as a teacher gone, she moves with him into his ancestral home in a small coastal village. Their love grows, and soon they have a daughter, Antía. In a period of relative happiness and warmth, the young family ages well, until a decade and a half later, Xoan’s untimely death creates a deep rift between mother and daughter.
“Julieta” is a touching film. The 20th cinematic work by director Pedro Almodóvar, he upholds his legacy of emotional films in this excellent adaptation of the short-story collection Runaway, by Alice Munro.
What at first appears to be overly dramatic acting, reminiscent of a daytime soap opera, is quickly illustrated to be a necessity. The chemistry among the cast members is remarkable. It seems as if there is hardly a moment filled with conscious acting; rather, the actors appear to live their roles. The acting duo of Suárez and Agarte, playing the past and the present Julieta, are especially effective. The two work together seamlessly, developing the protagonist as a deep, cohesive character.
Though the movie has as its main themes loss, grief, and the fragility of human relationships, there is a drop of the promise of reconciliation that sweetens the film, promising that even the stormiest seas of loss and pain are met again by a sunny day.