Film director and writer Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) has reached a point in his career where his physical ailments prevent him from working. Back pain, migraines, asthma, anxiety and depression are just a few of the afflictions that prevent him from being able to shoot films. Unable to do that he is unable to write and without that he feels his life has no meaning. When a local cinema asks him to introduce a restored version of a film he made thirty years earlier he tries to reconnect with the actor he fell out with during the shoot and he starts to reflect on crucial people and moments in his life.

Pain and Glory is clearly a personal film for Pedro Almodóvar and Mallo is some version of himself. It’s a very reflective film and focuses on how Mallo was inspired to create art and how he inspires others to create theirs. And it uses that art to tell its story.

Banderas is incredibly impressive as the melancholy Mallo. And there are many other impressive performances throughout. Penelope Cruz is Mallo’s idealistic version of his mother caring for her young son portrayed by excellent child actor Asier Flores. Whilst Alberto Crespo, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Cesar Vicente all play key men in the directors life.

A slow burn of a film, it ultimately wins you over as we learn what inspired a boy to be an artist and the impact he had on others.