Pené­lope Cruz knows best in the first trail­er for Par­al­lel Mothers

Fre­quent con­tro­ver­sy-courter Pedro Almod­ó­var has already met with some minor scan­dal over his lat­est film Par­al­lel Moth­ers, as the poster depict­ing a lac­tat­ing nip­ple was wrong­ly cen­sored by Insta­gram on charges of vio­lat­ing the platform’s con­tent restric­tions. The scuf­fle has been resolved, and from the looks of the first trail­er, it wasn’t even raised over one of the Span­ish master’s more risqué works.

The pre­view arrived online this after­noon, teas­ing a more pen­sive and down­beat entry to the Almod­ó­var oeu­vre, more in keep­ing with his recent, ele­giac Pain and Glo­ry than the sex­u­al provo­ca­tions for which he’s main­ly known. One con­stant, how­ev­er, is the reap­pear­ance of his long­time muse Pené­lope Cruz, look­ing resplen­dent as ever in a mater­nal mode.

She plays Janis, a mid­dle-aged woman elat­ed to have con­ceived a child, in con­trast with the reluc­tant teenage moth­er Ana (Mile­na Smit) that she meets in the hos­pi­tal. The time they spend togeth­er is brief but mean­ing­ful; as the years go by and their lives move along the par­al­lel tracks referred to by the title, the words they share inform their respec­tive des­tinies and cre­ate a last­ing spir­i­tu­al bond.

The par­tic­u­lars of the plot are only touched upon in the trail­er, Janis return­ing to her job as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and chat­ting up a polit­i­cal­ly aloof actor friend. But it’s plain that the writer-direc­tor has returned to his pet theme of the com­plex­i­ties, exact­ing demands, and heartrend­ing loss­es uni­ver­sal to the expe­ri­ence of womanhood.

Ever the fes­ti­val favorite, Almod­ó­var and his lat­est project will take a world tour over the next cou­ple months, open­ing the Venice Film Fes­ti­val and clos­ing the New York Film Fes­ti­val. Though the UK release cal­en­dar does not include the film at present, Pathé has already acquired the dis­tri­b­u­tion rights, so a run in cin­e­mas can’t be too far off.

Par­al­lel Moth­ers comes to US cin­e­mas on 24 Decem­ber. A date for the UK has yet to be set.