Ma Ma | Film review - Penélope Cruz throbs with life

(Image credit: © Metrodome Pictures)

Penélope Cruz delivers a vibrant, vital, defiantly life-affirming performance as a woman dealing with a diagnosis of breast cancer in Ma Ma, an unashamedly melodramatic film from Spanish director Julio Medem (director of Sex and Lucía and Room in Rome). Some of the film’s more whimsically offbeat touches – such as Cruz’s visions of a waifish Siberian orphan or the gynaecologist who bursts into song - may grate with some viewers, but Cruz is so radiant that she keeps us compelled.

Certificate 12. Runtime 111 mins. Director Julio Medem

Ma Ma debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere at 9.45pm today and is available on DVD from Metrodome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klbTs_w4nWo

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.