Review: 'Parallel Mothers,' with a superb Penélope Cruz, is Pedro Almodóvar at his best

In the opening moments of Pedro Almodóvar's "Parallel Mothers," a Madrid woman named Janis (Penélope Cruz) files a request to open a mass grave, sleeps with a hunky anthropologist and — cut to nine months later — gives birth to a baby girl. Almodóvar has never been afraid to throw a lot at his viewers, and this summary might at first suggest an incongruous narrative exercise, a reckless mix of genteel absurdity and historical gravity. But there is nothing remotely strained about what we see; the director, well into his late-period mastery at 72, now slips so nimbly among different emotional registers that you may wonder if there is even much of a difference. Everything here is connected and the story flows and flows, achieving a breathless momentum that reveals its intricate design only in retrospect.

Almodóvar, who once