Pedro Almodóvar’s latest collaboration with frequent star Penelope Cruz ranks easily among the pair’s best. Two women, Janis and Ana, meet in a hospital room where they’re both in labor. Both are single and pregnant by accident. Janis (Penelope Cruz), who’s middle-aged, is exultant. The other, Ana (Milena Smit), an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two —  which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.

“PARALLEL MOTHERS is a movie of infinite tenderness, that rare ode to motherhood that acknowledges mothers as women first and mothers second.” —Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine

“Feels almost like stepping back into a long conversation with an old friend; a dialogue of decades, told two hours at a time.” —Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

“A ravishingly crafted work that again illustrates with ineffable beauty that no one uses the expressive power of color and design quite like Almodóvar.” —David Roonery, Hollywood Reporter