Pain and Glory

Pain and Glory (Spanish: Dolor y gloria) is a 2019 Spanish drama film, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It stars Antonio Banderas as an aging and ailing film director who reflects on his life. The supporting cast features Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, and Penélope Cruz.
Pain and Glory was released in Spain on 22 March 2019 to positive reviews. It made its international debut at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won two awards: Banderas for Best Actor and Alberto Iglesias for Best Soundtrack. At the 92nd Academy Awards, Pain and Glory was nominated for Best International Feature Film, and Banderas was nominated for Best Actor.
Madrid-based filmmaker Salvador Mallo's health is in decline, which has made him depressed and reflective. His back pain and headaches have kept him from considering a new project for several years, and recently he has experienced persistent dysphagia. Flavor, one of Salvador's old films, has just been restored, and he is asked to appear at a screening. He has not seen the film's lead Alberto in decades, having fallen out over Alberto's heroin use during filming. Still, he reaches out to Alberto and asks him to present Flavor with him. When Alberto prepares to smoke heroin, he is surprised Salvador wants to join. Under the influence, Salvador remembers moving with his impoverished parents into a cave-house in Paterna as a child.
When Alberto arrives to take Salvador to the screening, Salvador decides not to go, but the moderator poses audience questions to him over the phone. When asked about their old argument, Salvador repeats his old criticisms and blurts out that Alberto took heroin during filming. Although he says he now approves of Alberto's performance, Alberto is enraged and leaves. Salvador starts to regularly take heroin to manage his pain. He remembers when, as a boy, his mother arranged for him to teach a young man named Eduardo how to read, in exchange for work on the cave. She then used this as evidence of his intelligence to gain him admittance to a seminary. Although he did not want to leave home or become a priest, his mother saw it as the only way they could afford to get him an education.
To make amends, Salvador agrees to let Alberto stage a story he wrote about a relationship he had in the 1980s that fell apart due to his partner Federico's heroin use. Coincidentally, Federico attends the show and obtains Salvador's contact information from Alberto. When the former lovers meet, Federico says he has been living in Argentina and that this is his first time in Madrid in decades. He reveals he has a wife, from whom he is separated, and two sons, and that he has not dated a man since he broke up with Salvador. On his way out the door, Federico offers to stay the night, but Salvador says they should leave their relationship in the past. Salvador then discards his heroin.
Accompanied by his assistant, Mercedes, he sees doctors about his pain and dysphagia, and admits to his heroin use. He reveals that he has not recovered either from his mother's death or his back surgery from years earlier. Salvador reminisces with Mercedes about his mother's last days, spent with him in Madrid, when she revealed she did not want him to write stories about her and thought he resented her for sending him to the seminary. Although Salvador was able to apologise for not being the son she wanted, he feels guilty he was not able to take her to her village to die, like he had promised.
Mercedes shows Salvador an invitation card to an art gallery and he recognises the painting of a boy on it. He remembers when Eduardo began sketching him after working at the Mallos' cave-house. Eduardo then bathed himself, and young Salvador fainted upon seeing him naked, marking his sexual awakening. Salvador goes to the gallery and learns that the owner had found Eduardo's artwork at a flea market. Salvador buys the painting and discovers a letter written on the back in which Eduardo thanks him for his help tutoring him. Meanwhile, a CT scan reveals the cause of his dysphagia as an easily operable calcified growth in his neck, and not a tumour as feared.
On the way to his surgery, Salvador muses to Mercedes that his mother must have received the portrait but never mentioned it to him. Mercedes asks if he will try to find Eduardo, but Salvador says too much time has passed and what matters is that the painting finally made its way to him. As Salvador slips into unconsciousness on the operating table, he mentions to his doctor that he has started writing again. He is then seen on a film set directing a scene from his childhood, in a meta-like ending with Penelope Cruz and Asier Flores.
El Deseo announced plans for the new film in April 2018, confirming Antonio Banderas and Asier Etxeandia as leads with Penélope Cruz and Julieta Serrano in supporting roles. Rosalía's appearance in the film was revealed by her presence in the trailer, which premiered on 31 January 2019.
In May 2018, Almodóvar was pictured researching locations in the Province of Valencia with cinematographer José Luis Alcaine. The following June, Fotogramas reported that a large part of the filming would take place in Valencia, particularly in the municipality of Paterna. The same month, Agustín Almodóvar, the producer of the film, posted a photo on Twitter of his brother, Pedro, on set, which was later followed by photos of Banderas, Sbaraglia, and Cruz together in screen tests for the film.
Agustín Almodóvar announced via Twitter that filming began on 16 July 2018. The 44-day shoot concluded on 15 September.
Pain and Glory premiered at the Cine Capitol in Madrid on 13 March 2009. That May, it made its international debut at the Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won two awards: Banderas for Best Actor and Alberto Iglesias for Best Soundtrack. It was released in Spainish theatres nine days later. It was released in the United Kingdom by Pathé and 20th Century Fox on 23 August, and received a limited release in the United States from Sony Pictures Classics starting on 4 October.
The film drew more than 45,000 moviegoers in Spain on the Friday of its release, making it the most-viewed film in the country on that day. It was estimated the film earned €300,000 in its first day and €1.2 million in its debut weekend. By September the film had grossed €6.5 million in Spain, making it the highest-grossing Spanish film of 2019. Worldwide, Pain and Glory has earned $36.6 million.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 306 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10; the website's critics consensus reads: "Pain and Glory finds writer-director Pedro Almodóvar drawing on his own life to rewarding effect -- and honoring his craft as only a master filmmaker can." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Initial Spanish critical reception of the film was generally positive. Pain and Glory received an average score of 7.7/10 from 1,448 reviews on FilmAffinity, and an average critical rating of 4.3/5 from 14 critical reviews on Sensacine. Fotogramas gave the film a 5-star review that complimented the director's artistry. El Periódico de Catalunya also gave the film five stars, while ABC gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and El Confidencial gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. Catalan daily newspaper Ara compared the film's twilight serenity and checked emotion to that of the masterpiece last films made by John Huston (The Dead) and Carl Theodor Dreyer (Gertrud).
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times gave the film a rave review and chose it as her Critic's pick of the week writing: "A great deal happens in Pain and Glory, just not ritualistically and not at top volume. Its agonies are tempered, its regrets hushed, its restraint powerful." She also named it "The Best Movie of 2019".
TIME magazine named Pain and Glory as the best film of 2019. The Guardian ranked the film at No. 10 on its list of the "50 best films of 2019". Sight & Sound magazine named it the 6th-best film of the year.