We pretty much know what to expect from Pedro Almodóvar by now. He's Spain's master of the overheated melodrama with a sexy cast, a screwball soul, and an overcharged emotional atmosphere of obsessive desire, bad behavior, and worse judgment.

Broken Embraces puts a frame around those expectations and subdues all that excess. This story of obsession, sex, and art is all flashback, told with more than a twinge of regret by a blind screenwriter, Harry Caine (Lluís Homar), who in another life was a major director. It involves a beautiful actress (Penélope Cruz), her pathologically jealous millionaire lover (José Luis Gómez), an anxious teenage son desperate for daddy's affirmation (Rubén Ochandiano), a lip-reader, and an illicit affair. For a professional storyteller, Harry is awfully blind to the revenge tale that his libido has landed him in.

Most of Almodóvar's stock company shows up in small roles, and he even quotes his own Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, but the energy and the snap are missing in this reflexive and reflective film. There's plenty of compassion and forgiveness in Broken Embraces, but at the expense of the immediacy, the urgency, and the overpowering passions of Almodóvar at his best.

About halfway through the film, Harry and his young assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas), hash out ideas for a vampire movie with a madly erotic twist. The scene bounces with creative energy—wild ideas batted back and forth by two men whose relationship has evolved into a genuine collaboration. I want to see that movie. If Broken Embraces is Almodóvar reflecting back, hopefully his next film will look forward to some new subjects and ideas. Like vampires whose teeth get erections when aroused. I would watch that.