Back in 1997, actor Penélope Cruz and director Pedro Almodóvar first collaborated with the film Live Flesh. 2006 found them together for the third of seven movies to date via Volver, an effort that brought Cruz her first of four Oscar nominations.

Years ago, the parents of Raimunda (Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas) died in a fire. Raimunda, Sole and Raimunda’s daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) all decide to travel from Madrid to the small town to visit their mother Irene’s (Carmen Maura) grave.

While there, they encounter their now-senile Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave), and she claims that Irene remains alive. The sisters soon realize the unnatural reality of this situation.

While that synopsis implies Volver will offer a spooky ghost story, the reality doesn’t follow that theme. Instead, the film plays more as a character drama that emphasizes female life, with some surprisingly dark turns.

I say “surprisingly” because the movie’s opening implies it’ll lean toward light comedy. While Volver doesn’t play the scenes with Aunt Paula totally for laughs, these feel frisky in a gentle way that doesn’t foreshadow the twists soon to come.

Almodovar manages the tonal changes well, as these don’t seem abrupt or awkward. Much of the movie remains fairly light, albeit with a slant toward a feminist theme.

Volver represents only the second Almodovar film I’ve seen, and the other – 2019’s Pain and Glory - focused on male characters. However, even with this lack of personal experience, I knew that Almodovar maintains a reputation as a “woman’s director”.

That comes through via Volver, as it focuses heavily on its female roles. Men here tend to get portrayed as superfluous at best or malevolent at worst.

Don’t interpret that to mean that Volver indulges in gratuitous male-bashing. Really, men seem like afterthoughts in the movie, as they play a minor part beyond the motivation of some plot points.

That leaves Volver as a tale of female kinship, support and survival. While it lacks a particularly clear narrative, it compensates with rich portrayals of its characters.

In particular, Almodovar avoids the temptation to portray its women as mere receptacles of our pity. While we do empathize with Raimunda and the rest, the film doesn’t portray them as victims or downtrodden.

This allows the roles to seem more believable – and for Volver to avoid melodramatic pitfalls. The movie’s story choices can lean toward soap opera territory, but Almodovar paints them in such a matter-of-fact manner that they lose the cloying sappiness that normally they would deliver.

This helps allow Volver to bring a fairly rich character drama, one abetted by good performances. Cruz seems clear-eyed and direct, while her costars occupy their parts well, too.

I won’t claim that Volver provides the most dynamic film I’ve seen, and its lack of concise narrative can make it feel vaguely aimless at times. Nonetheless, it brings enough depth and dimensionality to become a largely involving tale.

Volver appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. With this Dolby Vision image, we got a generally attractive presentation.

My only mild complaint related to sharpness, as some shots felt softer than expected. That said, I suspect these “issues” stemmed from the source, and they remained minor enough that they didn’t become a real distraction. The majority of the flick felt accurate and concise.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects, materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt light but organic, and print flaws failed to manifest.

Colors usually leaned toward a fairly natural vibe, with some prominent reds on occasional as well as a light teal tint for nighttime shots. The hues seemed well-reproduced, and the 4K’s HDR added heft and range to the tones.

Blacks seemed deep and dense, while shadows appeared smooth and clear. HDR brought extra oomph and intensity to contrast and whites. Despite a little softness at times, this remained a satisfying image.

Given the film’s character-heavy orientation, don’t expect a lot from the fairly restrained DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack It emphasized music and general ambience.

A few scenes used effects in a more dynamic way – such as via the wind that accompanied the opening scenes – but not much of note cropped up via this low-key soundfield.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that appeared natural and distinctive. Music felt lush and full.

As noted, effects lacked a lot of prominence, but they nonetheless came across as accurate and without distortion. Though nothing here impressed, the soundtrack suited the story.

A mix of extras appear on the disc, and we launch with an audio commentary from director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Penélope Cruz. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story, characters and themes, cast and performances, sets and locations, color choices, music, some cultural elements, and a few related threads.

At times, we get decent insights about the movie. Unfortunately, Almodóvar simply narrates the movie an awful lot of the time, so this becomes a dull commentary for much of the film's length.

Featurettes follow, and an Interview with Director Director Pedro Almodóvar runs 10 minutes, 12 seconds. Here the filmmaker discusses locations and culture, tone and themes, his desire to only make movies in Spain, and story/characters. We get a decent overview here, but not a lot of real substance emerges.

An Interview with Actor Penélope Cruz goes for five minutes, 31 seconds and delivers her thoughts about working with Almodóvar again, characters and performances, themes and story, and plans for her career. Like the Almodóvar chat, this one existed to promote the film, so don't expect much depth.

In the same vein, an Interview with Actor Carmen Maura lasts eight minutes, 25 seconds and covers thoughts about Almodóvar, her character and performance, story and general thoughts about the film.

As with the two prior interviews, this one lacks a lot of meat, but since we've not already heard from Maura, it offers a bit more involvement than the prior two reels.

Making of Volver spans seven minutes, 56 seconds and brings a collection of shots from the set, with some emphasis on the scene in which Cruz sings a tune. I normally like "fly on the wall" footage, but this compilation seems less than compelling, mainly because it overdubs music so we rarely hear the production.

A Tribute to Penélope Cruz takes us 18 minutes, 11 seconds as critic Kenneth Turan interviews Cruz. She discusses how she got into acting, collaborating with Almodóvar, working on Volver, and related elements. This becomes a fairly informative chat, even with some inevitable repetition.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we conclude with a Photo Gallery. It presents 92 frames that mix movie shots, behind the scenes images and ads. It feels banal much of the time.

With Volver, we find a female-centered drama that lacks a particularly cohesive plot. However, it compensates with rich characters and a refreshing lack of melodrama. The 4K UHD comes with good picture, appropriate audio and a moderate roster of supplements. This winds up as a quality release for a compelling movie.

Note that as of November 2022, this 4K UHD disc of Volver appears solely via an 11-film “Sony Picture Classics 30th Anniversary” box. It also includes Orlando, Celluloid Closet, City of Lost Children, Run Lola Run, SLC Punk, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Devil’s Backbone, Synecdoche, New York, Still Alice and Call Me By Your Name.