Pain and Glory () is a 2019 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It stars Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, and Penélope Cruz.
The film was released in Spain on 22 March 2019 to positive reviews. It made its international debut at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won two awards: Banderas for Best Actor and Alberto Iglesias for Best Soundtrack. At the 92nd Academy Awards, Pain and Glory was nominated for Best International Feature Film, and Banderas was nominated for Best Actor. Time magazine chose the film as the best movie of 2019.
Plot
Spanish film director Salvador Mallo is in decline, both physically and mentally, which has made him reflective. His chronic back pain and headaches, in particular, have kept him from even considering trying to start a new project for several years, and recently he started to experience a persistent and troubling dysphagia.
Flavor, one of Salvador's old films, has just been restored, and he was asked to appear at a screening. He has not seen Alberto Crespo, the lead actor of the film, in 32 years, but he decides to reach out and ask if Alberto will help present Flavor. Their falling-out was centered around Alberto's heroin use during filming, so Alberto, who still smokes heroin, is surprised when Salvador asks for some when he is getting ready to smoke. Under the influence, Salvador remembers moving with his parents into a whitewashed cave-house in Paterna in the 1960s.
When Alberto arrives to take Salvador to the screening, Salvador decides not to go, but the moderator of the planned Q&A gets them to answer audience questions over the phone. Several people ask about the argument between Salvador and Alberto, and Salvador ends up repeating his old criticisms, and blurts out that Alberto took heroin during filming. Although he says he now approves of Alberto's performance, Alberto is enraged and leaves.
Salvador starts to regularly take heroin to manage his pain. He remembers when, as a small boy, his mother arranged for him to teach a young man named Eduardo how to read, write, and do math in exchange for work on the cave, and then used this as evidence of his intelligence to gain him admittance to a seminary. He did not want to leave home or become a priest, but, because they were poor, his mother saw it as the only way for him to get an education.
To make amends, Salvador agrees to let Alberto stage, as a monologue, a story he wrote about a relationship he had in the early 1980s that fell apart due to his partner's heroin use. Coincidentally, Federico, who the story is about, goes to see the show, and Alberto gives Salvador's contact information to him. When the former lovers meet, Federico says he has been living in Argentina and this is the first time he has come back to Madrid in decades. He reveals that he has a wife, from whom he is separated, and two sons, and he has not dated a man since he broke up with Salvador. On his way out the door, Federico offers to stay the night, but Salvador says they should leave their romantic relationship in the past, and Federico insists Salvador come to Buenos Aires to meet his family.
Once he is alone, Salvador goes to take some heroin, but instead throws it all away. He sees doctors about his pain and dysphagia and admits to his heroin use and that he still has not recovered from either the death of his mother four years earlier or a back surgery two years after that. Salvador remembers when his mother lived with him near the end of her life and relates to his assistant, Mercedes, how she had told him she did not want him to write stories about her and thought he had always blamed her for sending him to the seminary. Although, before his mother died, Salvador was able to apologize for not being the son she wanted, he feels guilty he was not able to take her to her village to die, like he had promised.
Mercedes shows Salvador an invitation to a small art gallery that has a portrait of a small boy on it. He seems to recognize the painting, and, during a CT scan of his neck, remembers when Eduardo started it one day after working at the Mallos' cave-house. Eduardo cleaned himself up before leaving, and Salvador swooned when he went to bring the man a towel and saw Eduardo naked, marking his sexual awakening.