Parents' Guide to

Julieta

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Colorful, subtle, mature soap opera from Almodóvar.

Movie R 2016 99 minutes
Julieta Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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age 17+

Based on 1 parent review

doctora
doctora Parent of 5-year-old
June 16, 2022
age 17+

What happens when you cannot communicate and are trapped in your own thoughts

Another female centric Almodóvar film that engages and takes a few turns. The abruptness and the suffering in silence is difficult to warm up to and it is easy to feel that it is time wasted. But being wrapped up in your own grief and not communicating is a tough stance to sell in a film for 90 minutes. The film succeeds in telling a lucid and complex story about not communicating and being trapped in your own thoughts...no small feat.
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What's the Story?

JULIETA begins in the present day, as the aging but still beautiful Julieta (Emma Suarez) prepares to move from Madrid to Portugal with her lover (Dario Grandinetti). Then she runs into a face from her past and receives news about her daughter, missing for a dozen years, and decides to stay put and wait to be contacted. Julieta then writes a letter, detailing the beginning of the story, and, in flashback, a younger Julieta (Adriana Ugarte) meets her handsome, bearded fisherman husband, Xoan (Daniel Grao), who recently lost a wife. Julieta clashes with Xoan's nasty housekeeper (Rossy de Palma), but she marries him anyway. They have a daughter and are happy, until the family suffers a terrible tragedy that ultimately leads to the daughter's departure. Can mother and daughter ever reunite?

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar adapts three stories by Nobel Prize-winning writer Alice Munro; though his sensibilities are quite different from her style, the result is surprisingly satisfying. The three masterful, connected tales are from the 2004 collection Runaway -- a book that again allowed Munro to display her powerful gift. She can create incredibly rich and detailed worlds within the limited space of a short story; her tales sometimes feel like entire novels.

Almodovar isn't generally that subtle. He is, perhaps, along with Todd Haynes, the world's leading student of Douglas Sirk, bold like a beating heart, with giant swaths of red in every corner. But, somehow, Julieta emerges as a subtle soap opera, balanced between Munro's exquisite storytelling and Almodovar's more unsubtle style, a rewarding blend of anguished emotions and deep, intimate details. The director keeps the histrionics to a minimum, and there's very little of the aggravatingly broad humor found in his last film, I'm So Excited! The exceptional performances by both Suarez and Ugarte are the icing on a colorful cake.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how Julieta depicts sex. Does it seem positive? Meaningful? How do foreign movies and American movies tend to differ in the way they handle sex?

  • What's the appeal of "weepies," aka soap operas? What makes this movie "soapy"? How does it compare to Almodovar's previous films?

  • Why do you think the daughter doesn't return to her mother? Is it a matter of forgiveness or something deeper? What would you have done?

  • If you've read Alice Munro's short stories, how does Julieta compare to them? In general, which do you prefer -- the book or the movie?

Movie Details

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