Parallel Mothers follows Janis, a photographer in Madrid who becomes pregnant after an affair with a married expert who studies human remains. She shares a hospital room with Ana, a frightened teenager who is also about to give birth. The two women leave with baby girls, but a mistake at the hospital ties their lives together through grief, guilt, and a hidden truth. Janis also tries to open a mass grave in her village and find her great-grandfather, who was killed during the Spanish Civil War. The film mixes family drama, mystery, sex, and painful history in a bright but serious tone.
The movie puts women and motherhood at the center, and it treats single motherhood as a valid way to build a family. Janis teaches Ana to care for a child, and the two women later have a sexual relationship that supports a family with two mothers. Ana's pregnancy follows a gang rape, so the story links female trauma with questions about control, shame, and trust. Janis also wears a shirt that says We Should All Be Feminists, while the grave story presents facing Spain's past as a moral duty. These ideas shape the main plot and return through the final family and grave scenes.
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Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Parallel Mothers.
Woke representation / casting
Not present. The film uses Spanish actors for a story set in present-day Spain. The two leading women fit the story's focus on mothers and do not create a diversity-first casting pattern.
0%
Woke political dialogue
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.
49%
Identity-driven story themes
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.
68%
Western institutional / cultural critique
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.
46%
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. The film uses original fictional characters and does not rewrite a known character, franchise, or real historical figure.
0%
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
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.
24%
Creator track record context
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.
71%
Production
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