Parallel Mothers

Janis and Arturo discuss the Historical Memory Law and the lack of money for grave work. Arturo calls the cuts outrageous, and Janis says families need a proper burial. Ana repeats her father's view that the past should stay buried. Janis then gives Ana a long lesson about missing people and says Spain cannot move on until the dead are found.

Janis and Ana are single mothers whose bond becomes the film's main relationship. Ana's pregnancy follows rape, and the story links her trauma to shame, silence, and male control. The women later have sex and raise a child within a family built around two mothers and shared care. Janis's feminist shirt and the film's praise of female support make identity and gender themes easy to see.

Janis rejects the idea that a married man should decide her future as a mother. Ana's father hides her rape to avoid a public scandal, and the boys who hurt her face little adult punishment. The film makes absent or selfish men a contrast to women who build a caring home. Janis also treats state silence about the graves as a present-day moral failure.

Armond White called the film “woke” in a National Review review, but the related posts had almost no reach. Several small Spanish-language accounts called the film ideologized or woke because of the mass-grave plot. One Spanish review called it an ideological pamphlet. No boycott, review-bombing drive, or broad anti-woke news cycle was found.

Pedro Almodóvar has a long record of queer, feminist, and anti-authority stories. Esther García and Agustín Almodóvar have backed many female and LGBTQ-focused films through El Deseo. Yolanda Serrano and Eva Leira have supported wider racial and LGBTQ casting, but their work is a milder signal here. Yuyi Beringola has no clear public activist profile.