L reads up on Volver on Wikipedia. She just can’t resist ‘reading the book’ but I can't have her knowing the plot, if I don't, so I have to have a read too.
We do the pub at lunch and I try some of the Flowerpot's new own brew, King Street Ale, it's not bad but a bit too sharp for me. Have Steak and Kidney pie too.
L gets an email trying to recruit me into a cross-country team. I'm not sure I'm available, I'm still considering an offer from a rival team that I got after the Notts 5 although I think that might have been retracted after I trounced the chap who offered at both the Jagermeister and Shepshed. He's since stopped speaking to me.
Another reason I'm not playing squash is because L wants to go shopping and that would mean dumping Doggo. It also gives my opponent more time to get a new (stronger) racquet, after what he did to his last week. So instead of squash I take Doggo for a loop around Wollaton, the University and then down the canal to meet L at Sainsbury's. I think he would have preferred that I had played squash. He seemed to have a look of resignation on his face for most of the run.
We hit a problem on the canal tow path, where we catch a bike up. This girl is riding with no lights. Ok so she won't get hit by a car on the tow path but she could end up in the water because she clearly can't see where she's going. It can't help having a dog breathing down you back wheel either. In the end we overtake which means we now have to concentrate on staying ahead. Finally we make it to Sainbury's and Doggo flops in the car while I go and find L.
After we get back with the shopping we feast romantically on pate and cheese washed down with red wine, a glass of, not a bath full. Then afterwards we finished off Volver or does it finish us off.
Penelope Cruz plays Raimunda, who, finds herself husbandless, thanks to her own daughter. He came on to her and she stabbed him. Little is made of the attempted rape or the subsequent murder, by mother or Daughter; they just shrug their shoulders 'oh well' and get on with life. This sets the tone for the film as other things happen, everyone's dirty washing falls out of the cupboard and the plot gets weirder and more convoluted. Raimunda's sister, Sole thinks she's seeing the ghost of their dead mother, and... well there's just too much to go into.
I suppose it's a kind of film noir but it’s also like a soap opera, I can't really see why it got all the plaudits. It’s well shot, well made, Penelope Cruz is passable but hardly sensational. I suppose compared with her previous efforts she's a revelation but she still has to mime when she's asked to perform a flamenco number.
It all left me cold. It's a story about women sticking together with an almost all female cast. It's a film for girls but then I don't think L was that fussed by it either. Volver means 'to return'. Hmmm, not in this case.
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