Hints and tips:
...The Spanish star is a seasoned hand in channelling Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani et al (in several Italian films, as well as Almodóvar’s Volver), and here she exudes both playful and tragic magnificence....
...That’s the cave house dwelt in by young Salvador, alter ego for young Pedro, and his mother, played by a Penélope Cruz doing at times the full Sophia Loren....
...Naomi Frederick’s Sister Juana is soulful and swottish; Phil Whitchurch’s Aguiar y Sejas is as bitter as his lemon; and Sophia Nomvete’s very witty slave steals the show. shakespearesglobe.com...
...Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren (mum), Penélope Cruz (who should surely play Loren in a biopic), Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson …If you stretched the film’s divae end to end, you still couldn’t stop them standing...
...And the lissom Cruz, accessorised with big hair and a specially built-up bottom, resembles a combination of Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani – and has built up her acting to match....
...In his Volver Penélope Cruz grows up too, sidelining her Hollywood career for reincarnation as a Euro-diva. Goggle at the Sophia Loren hair, the darkened eyebrows, the amped-up acting....
International Edition