[4][5] It stars Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, and Penélope Cruz.

[8] It made its international debut at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or[9] and won two awards: Banderas for Best Actor and Alberto Iglesias for Best Soundtrack.

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.

[a] 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.

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.

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.

[b] After being told his dysphagia is being caused by a calcified growth in his neck, which can be removed, Salvador goes to the art gallery and learns that the owner had found Eduardo's portrait of him at a flea market.

Salvador buys the painting and discovers a letter written on the back in which Eduardo thanks him for his help with writing and math and gives him an updated address so they can stay in touch.

El Deseo announced plans for the new film in April 2018, confirming Antonio Banderas and Asier Etxeandia as leads with Penélope Cruz and Julieta Serrano in supporting roles.

[3] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 306 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10; the website's critics consensus reads: "Pain and Glory finds writer-director Pedro Almodóvar drawing on his own life to rewarding effect -- and honoring his craft as only a master filmmaker can.

[39] Manohla Dargis of the New York Times gave the film a rave review and chose it as her Critic's pick of the week writing: "A great deal happens in “Pain and Glory,” just not ritualistically and not at top volume.

The narrative structure and arc of the film, with its many coincidences (Federico stumbling upon the performance of the play; the discovery of Eduardo's portrait of Salvador many years after it was painted) are like a visual depiction of an Auster novel.

In an academic research, Shlomit Lir and Liat Ayalon wrote about the movie in relation to the myth of the absolute creator and of the danger of the process of regression into the world of creative arts, which is actualized in by the protagonist's inability to overcome the residues of the past.

According to the authors, the absolute director is so deeply involved in his work that he find it difficult to speak any language other than cinema.