Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz at the Toronto Film Festival. Photo by Jennifer Cooper. • Read Premiere's Volver review. • Buy Volver • Rent Volver A scene from Volver with the English subtitles of Almodóvar's commentary

"It was like wearing a magnet pulling you to the ground," Pedro Almodóvar says to Penélope Cruz of the prosthetic rump he had her don to play Raimunda, a much-beleaguered working-class mom in Volver, the latest in a long streak of cinematic triumphs for writer/director Almodóvar and something of a revelation for doubters of Cruz's considerable talents.

Volver, which debuted at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and topped off Sony Pictures Classics "Viva Pedro!" rep series last year, begins with a stunning evocation of the windy region of La Mancha. Almodóvar himself was born there, and it is also the area of Spain to which all the women of Volver are attached. Raimunda's troubles include a murdered husband, a seemingly unhinged sister, an ill friend, and, most disturbingly, the ghost of her mother (played by former Almodóvar stalwart Carmen Maura, reuniting with the filmmaker after a nearly 20-year estrangement). A handful of genre homages early on coalesce into something richer and stranger than pastiche; and while the movie doesn't have the grab-bag virtuosity of, say, Almodóvar's 2002 Talk to Her, it has a cumulative power that's measuredly moving — it's a picture that goes on revealing itself to you for days after you first see it.

Cruz and Almodóvar's commentary track is in Spanish with English subtitles, which sometimes makes for a peculiar experience (see screen grab). On occasion it's a little play-by-play-ish, but as you see, the two are not above discussing the odd juicy detail now and again.