The Essentials: Volver (2006)

"Funny as it is fierce, breathtaking as it is life-affirming."

— Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

"As emotionally devastating as it is visually stunning."

— Alyx Vesey, B**** Media

"[A] vibrant film that's pure class, pure imagination and pure Almodovar."

— David Germain, Associated Press

"Penelope Cruz is sensational in Volver - she's its lifeblood, its raison d'etre and its meaning."

— Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun

"It's very difficult to mesh fantasy with reality, but with great charm and a light touch, Almodovar shows exactly how it should be done."

— Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter

"Volver qualifies as a must-see movie for the director's fans or for those who wish to admire one of the greatest living cinema artists."

— Matt Weitz Denver, Rocky Mountain News

"With this, possibly his most subdued film, Almodo´var reinforces his status as one of the most distinctive and talented filmmakers working today."

— Claudia Puig, USA Today

"This all makes for a deeply entertaining experience that engages our hearts as well as our funny bones. And it's gratifying to see Cruz finally get her due."

— Desson Thomson, Washington Post

"Almodóvar has crafted an instant classic. Volver is miraculous, a joyous enterprise running the emotional gauntlet like no other melodrama I've seen in ages."

— Sara Michelle Fetters, MovieFreak.com

"Almodóvar is still one of the few directors worth watching just for how he uses color on the screen. But the pleasures have always run much deeper, and now they run deeper still."

— Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

"Ripe with female characters and embroidered with flourishes that hint at Hollywood's Golden Age, Volver is one of Almodóvar's finest films. It is also one of his most emotionally delightful."

— Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

"Each scene is lovingly crafted, with bright colors and the beautiful scenery of La Mancha, the mellifluous cadences of Castilian Spanish, and of course the faces, young and old, of each actress."

— Jenni Miller, Premiere

"Crammed with outrageous turns of fortune and quicksilver shifts in tone, Almodovar's film is held together by performances so subtle and complex it's hard to single out only one as exceptional. But Cruz is astonishing."

— Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide Magazine

"The great Spanish director's fourth triumph in a row--following 'All About My Mother,' 'Talk to Her' and 'Bad Education'--Volver (which means "coming back") flows effortlessly between peril and poignancy, the real and the surreal, even life and death."

— David Ansen, Newsweek

"Volver is Almodovar's passionate tribute to the community of women -- living and dead -- who nurtured him. Through the transformative power of his art -- carried on the wings of Alberto Iglesias' exhilarating score -- we feel their presence. You do not want to miss this one."

— Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"You always get more than one genre with this filmmaker. Volver draws upon all sorts of influences -- a little Hitchcock, a little Douglas Sirk, a little telenovela -- but from those sources Almodovar and his collaborators, both on screen and behind the camera, make an improbably organic whole."

— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

"In Volver, the latest marvel to emerge from his sharp and joyful mind, Almodovar blends autobiography, gossip, melodrama, music, the supernatural and the suffocatingly quotidian in a story about a woman -- indeed, a tribe of women -- struggling through a life of pain and disappointment."

— Shawn Levy, Portland Oregonian

"Peopled with superbly drawn, attractive characters smoothly integrated into a well-turned, low-tricks plotline, Volver may rep Almodovar's most conventional piece to date, but it is also his most reflective, a subdued, sometimes intense and often comic homecoming that celebrates the pueblo and people that shaped his imagination."

— Jonathan Holland, Variety