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Before sitting down to watch Almodover’s fabulous and fabled new film, VOLVER, be prepared to have to suspend your disbelief. Not at the notion that mothers can return from the dead to take care of their daughters, sisters and children of their enemies, but that the radiant Penelope Cruz, make-up flawless and bosom displayed to enormous advantage in every single frame, couldn’t land a better job than as a janitor at a hospital.

VOLVER (Spanish for “to return”) begins in a small town’s graveyard in La Mancha, Spain swarming with chatty women busily scrubbing family gravestones. Right away I am hooked. I am huge fan of kitsch, the rituals surrounding death, and communities of women and VOLVER includes all of these elements in abundance. Penelope Cruz plays Raimunda, strong, resilient, unflinching yet damaged who, along with her sister and fourteen year old daughter, is visiting her dotty aged aunt. The death of that same aunt some weeks later, propels the plot. Though she would like to go to the funeral, Raimunda cannot, because her daughter has just killed her husband and she’s hidden the body in the freezer of a nearby restaurant she is supposed to be showing to prospective buyers.

Instead she takes over the business. When the spirit of her dead mother returns to Madrid with her sister, the family secrets begin tumbling out as the unsettled ghost strives to breach the estrangement that kept her from caring for her daughters and granddaughter in life. There are no men to speak of in this film. And even when men do have a profound impact on the narrative, their acts seem to be more natural disasters than anything else.

This is simply a wonderful movie. There is not one maudlin moment to make you wince. Its preposterous, moving, ironic funny and unsettling but always honest. Cruz reminds me of a young Sophia Loren or Melina Mecouri. The rest of the cast is stellar. Be advised, the production values are not American. You’ll love this film for the characters and the story, not the eye-candy. (Though my husband disagrees)

VOLVER is a Spanish film with subtitles. What are your favorite foreign films and do you prefer yours dubbed or undubbed?