Red Dress. Strappy Choes.

So I have a confession to make. I have somewhat of an obsession…a Penélope Cruz obsession. This obsession is recent, but she has quickly become one of my favorite actresses.

I have been aware of Penélope for a while now, but I had never been that impressed with her. Sure, she is gorgeous and all but I hadn’t ever seen her in anything that I would call “great” until this past year.

I had seen her in terrible movies like Sahara and Bandidas (and yes…I did actually see Bandidas), but I had no clue that there was a real actress behind that lovely face of hers. I had also seen her in Vanilla Sky, which as a film overall was okay, but her role as Sofia was convincing enough to make me not write her off completely. The real appeal of her in this movie in my opinion is her pronunciation of lines like “Red dress. Strappy shoes.” The delivery of her lines with her Spanish accent was endearing, at least to my ears.

My first taste of Penélope actually owning a movie was Pedro Almodóvar’s film Volver. At the time I had not heard anything about Almodóvar or his movies, but this film made me sit up and notice both him for his distinct style as a director and Penélope for her actual talent as a gifted actress.

After seeing her act so well in her native tongue, I wanted to see more so I then saw her in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She played a smaller role in this film than in Volver but her screen presence was still as powerful as it was in that film. She played Lena, a psychopathic ex-girlfriend and managed to make it believable and relatable at the same time. This was another role that was primarily in Spanish (with a little English peppered in) so she was in her element. She was so fantastic in fact that it earned her an Academy Award for Best Support Actress.

The most recent movie of hers that I have seen is another Almodóvar picture called Broken Embraces. She once again was able to impress me with her portrayal of Lena, a woman who is caught in a love triangle with two men who would do anything to be with her. The story itself in this film is weaker than the previously mentioned Almodóvar film, but that takes nothing away from her performance. This is perhaps the best that I have seen her.

So I am eager to see more of her work. I have just rented a few more Almodóvar movies that she is in in hopes that she continues impressing me with her performances. Penélope Cruz is a beauty and a talent, a most lethal combination.