Broken Embraces

Broken Embraces follows Harry Caine, a blind writer living in Madrid who, fourteen years earlier, was a film director known by his real name, Mateo Blanco. A car accident on Lanzarote cost him his sight and the woman he loved, and he rebuilt his life under a pseudonym, writing screenplays with the help of his former production manager Judit and her son Diego. When a stranger approaches Harry with a proposition tied to his old producer, the past he has kept at a distance begins to resurface, and the story of the film he was making and the affair at its centre comes back into view.

Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed the film, the thirteenth of the twenty-two features he has made in chronological order, arriving between Volver and The Skin I Live In. Penélope Cruz plays Lena, with Lluís Homar as Mateo Blanco and Harry Caine, Blanca Portillo as Judit García, José Luis Gómez as Ernesto Martel, Rubén Ochandiano as Ray X and Tamar Novas as Diego. Shot across Spain and the Canary Islands, it was made for about 18 million USD and took roughly 31 million USD worldwide.

On IMDb it holds 7.2 out of 10 from 44,000 votes, and on TMDB it also scores 7.2, from 735 votes. A critics' rating of 7.2 from 156 reviews sits close to those audience figures, indicating a broadly comparable response from reviewers and viewers.