Volver (2006) Review – Pedro Almodóvar’s Joyful Ghost Story of Mothers and Daughters

Our Rating: ★★★★☆ 8.5/10

Volver — the title means “to return” — is Pedro Almodóvar’s most beloved film, and the easiest to love. It is a story about mothers and daughters, about ghosts and gossip, about a village in La Mancha where the wind never stops and the dead are never quite gone. It is also, in Almodóvar’s inimitable way, a comedy about murder, a melodrama about forgiveness, and a ghost story in which the ghost turns out to be the most practical person in the film. It won Best Actress (shared by its six leading women) and Best Screenplay at Cannes, and it gave Penélope Cruz the first Academy Award nomination ever received by a Spanish actress.

What makes Volver special is its tone. Almodóvar takes material that in other hands would be grim — abuse, death, family secrets — and tells it with warmth, humour and an absolute refusal of misery. His women are not victims; they are survivors, workers, gossips and mothers, and the film loves them without ever patronising them. It is a film that believes the dead return not to frighten us but because they have unfinished business, and that business is almost always love.

Quick Facts: Volver at a Glance

The Story: A Mother Returns, a Daughter Survives (Spoiler-Free)

Raimunda is a working-class woman in Madrid, raising her teenage daughter Paula and holding her household together with energy, humour and sheer force of will. Her sister Sole runs an unlicensed hair salon from her flat. Their mother Irene, so the family believes, died in a fire in their home village in La Mancha years ago, along with their father. The village, windswept and full of women who sweep the graves of their own dead, is where the film begins — and where its heart remains.

Then two things happen at once. A violent crisis at home forces Raimunda into desperate measures to protect her daughter, and back in the village, Sole discovers that their mother may not be as dead as everyone thought. A figure who looks exactly like Irene is living in the village, helping neighbours, keeping house — and when Sole returns to Madrid, the figure comes with her, hidden away, posing as a stranger who speaks no Spanish. This review will not reveal who the figure really is, or what secret Irene has returned to settle. It is enough to say that the film’s revelations are about the past’s debts — who owes whom an apology, a truth, a goodbye — and that the final scenes between mothers and daughters are among the most moving Almodóvar has ever filmed.

Around this central mystery, the film spins a rich comic world: a restaurant Raimunda takes over and turns into a roaring success, a film crew that needs feeding, a neighbour with a television programme and a missing mother of her own, and a village full of women who know everyone’s business and keep it anyway.

Performances: Cruz at Her Peak, Maura’s Triumphant Return

Penélope Cruz as Raimunda — This is the performance of Cruz’s career, and Almodóvar knew it: he built the film around her. Her Raimunda is all vitality — loud, funny, sensual, fiercely maternal, exhausted and indomitable at once. Cruz plays her with a physical freedom that is a joy to watch: cooking, cleaning, arguing, singing, holding her daughter close, lying to the police with a straight face. The famous scene in which she lip-syncs the tango “Volver” — flamenco-style, in a restaurant, to a room full of people — is not just a showpiece; it is the film’s thesis, a woman turning a song about returning into a declaration of survival. The Oscar nomination was fully earned.

Carmen Maura as Irene — Maura’s return to Almodóvar after eighteen years apart is the film’s other great event. Her Irene is wry, stubborn, practical and deeply moving: a mother who has come back not as a spectre but as a woman with chores to do and apologies to make. Maura plays her with a lightness that keeps the ghost story grounded — she irons, she cooks, she listens — and the scenes between Maura and Cruz, two generations of Almodóvar heroines facing each other at last, carry the film’s emotional weight.

The ensemble — Lola Dueñas is wonderful as Sole, the quieter sister whose salon becomes Irene’s hiding place; Blanca Portillo gives the film its conscience as Agustina, the neighbour searching for her own vanished mother; Yohana Cobo is affecting as Paula, the daughter caught between generations; and Chus Lampreave, as the elderly aunt, provides the film’s comic and ghostly heart. The Cannes jury was right to honour all six women together: this is an ensemble film in the truest sense.

Direction and Technical Craft

Almodóvar’s direction here is at its most confident and relaxed. The film’s visual world — José Luis Alcaine’s cinematography, all saturated reds, warm kitchens, village streets and wind-bent trees — is instantly recognisable as Almodóvar’s, but it serves the story rather than decorating it: the colours are the colours of women’s work, of food, of home. The La Mancha village, the director’s own birthplace region, is filmed with affection and without sentimentality — a place of wind, gossip and graves, where the living and the dead share the same streets.

The film’s genre-blending is its great technical feat. Volver is simultaneously a comedy, a melodrama, a mystery and a ghost story, and Almodóvar moves between those registers without ever breaking tone. A scene can be funny and frightening and moving in the same breath, because the film understands that life, especially women’s lives, is like that. The plotting is intricate — secrets, coincidences, revelations — but it never feels mechanical, because every twist grows out of character. If there is a limitation, it is that the film’s men are, by design, marginal or monstrous, and viewers looking for a balanced portrait of a family will not find one here. But that is Almodóvar’s point: this is a film about what women do when men fail them, and it tells that story without apology.

Music and Background Score

Alberto Iglesias’s score is one of his finest for Almodóvar: warm, lyrical, built around strings and a sense of circling back — music that returns, like the film’s title. Around it, the film’s musical set pieces do real narrative work: the tango “Volver”, lip-synced by Cruz to the voice of Estrella Morente, is the film’s emotional centrepiece, and the village songs and radio music root the story in La Mancha. Iglesias understands that in an Almodóvar film, music is not background; it is how characters say what they cannot say in dialogue.

What Works and What Doesn’t

What we loved:

• Penélope Cruz’s career-best performance as Raimunda
• Carmen Maura’s triumphant return as Irene
• A ghost story told with warmth, humour and total originality
• An ensemble of six superb women, honoured jointly at Cannes
• La Mancha filmed with love: wind, colour, gossip and graves

What could be better:

• The men are marginal by design, which may frustrate some viewers
• The plot’s coincidences require a willing suspension of disbelief
• The comic tone occasionally softens the darker material a little too much
• One subplot (the television programme) feels slightly underdeveloped

Box Office: A Worldwide Arthouse Hit

Volver premiered at Cannes in May 2006, where it won Best Actress (shared by its six leading women) and Best Screenplay, and opened in Spain on 17 March 2006. Made for $9.4 million, it became one of Almodóvar’s biggest commercial successes. On the worldwide total, sources differ slightly: the most commonly cited figures range from about $84 million to $87.2 million, with several databases settling around $85.6 million. We quote the range here — roughly $85–87 million — rather than pretending to a precision the sources do not share. On any figure, the film earned roughly nine times its budget, and in the United States alone it took about $12.9 million, an excellent result for a Spanish-language drama. Beyond the money, the film’s legacy is its Oscar nomination for Cruz — the first for a Spanish actress — and its place as the film that confirmed Almodóvar’s late-career mastery. It remains the Almodóvar film most often recommended to newcomers, and with good reason.

Verdict: Should You Watch It?

Yes — and watch it with someone you love, because it is a film about mothers and daughters that will make you think about your own. Volver is Almodóvar at his warmest and most accessible: funny, mysterious, gorgeously coloured and deeply moving, with a central performance from Penélope Cruz that justifies every superlative. It is a ghost story without fear, a family drama without misery, and a comedy that never forgets what its laughter is protecting.

For newcomers to Almodóvar, this is the perfect first film. For longtime fans, it is the one you return to.

Our rating: 8.5/10 — A joyful, mysterious, deeply humane film about the women who hold families together.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “Volver” mean?

It is Spanish for “to return” or “to go back”. It is also the title of the famous tango by Carlos Gardel that is performed in the film.

Is Volver a ghost story?

In a way — a figure who may be the dead mother Irene returns to the village and to her daughters. But Almodóvar treats the supernatural with warmth and practicality rather than horror, and the film explains its mystery in human terms.

Was Penélope Cruz nominated for an Oscar for Volver?

Yes. She was nominated for Best Actress at the 79th Academy Awards, becoming the first Spanish actress ever nominated in that category.

How long is Volver?

It runs 121 minutes — just over two hours.

Where can I watch Volver?

It is available on major streaming and digital purchase services in many regions, though availability changes by country and over time, so check your local platforms.