Volver

I recently saw Volver, a Spanish film whose title means "return" or "do over." What can you say about a film that begins with a brightly lit, colorful scene of a group of women cleaning the graves of their relatives?(see picture). All I can tell you is that this film is about death, marital infedelity, incest, murder and other "women's problems." Believe it or not, there are moments that are laugh-out-loud funny. I can't quite explain how, but it works. Penelope Cruz is brilliant as a strong woman who just keeps moving through the challenges of her days, scrubbing and washing as she goes. Life is messy , and women inevitably have a lot of cleaning up to do. Sometimes the mess is so great that one has to return from the grave for a "do over." Nothing is beyond these women.