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Volver is a intricate story of two sisters, Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas) as well as their relationships with Raimunda's daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) and their mother Irene. The story begins during the holiday of “The Day of the Dead” where it is tradition to attend to the graves of the departed. Subsequently the sisters must return home for a funeral of their Aunt Paula. Their Aunt Paula’s neighbor, whose mother mysteriously disappeared years earlier, tells them that she had heard Aunt Paula talking with their mother before she passed. Upon returning to the town where the sisters currently reside Sole is terrified when, what she believes is the ghost of her mother, knocks from the trunk of her car, luggage in hand, and informs Sole that she will be staying with her for a time. She becomes Sole’s assistant in her unlicensed beauty salon. In the meantime Raimunda and daughter Paula have their own death to deal with as Paula stabs her supposed father, Paco, after he tried to force himself on her. They move the body to the freezer in a closed restaurant that Raimunda is charged with showing to potential buyers while the owner is out of town. Raimunda confirms that Paco was not her true father but insists on explaining everything another time. A strange twist of plot occurs when the mother daughter re-open the restaurant for a film crew that is shooting nearby without the permission of the owner and with the assistance of neighbors. Augistina calls Raimunda from a hospital to reveal that she has cancer, when Raimunda finally visits her Augistina requests that Raimunda find out the fate of her mother. During the final dinner for the film crew in the newly invigorated restaurant it is revealed that Augistina’s mother was having an affair with Raimunda’s father and that she disappeared on the same day that the sister’s parents died in a tragic fire. More tragedy comes to light when Raimunda reveals that she was impregnated with Paula by her father and her resentment for her mother arises from her mother’s inability to identify and stop the abuse. This prompts their mother’s confession that, enraged in the discovery of the incest and adultery, she is the one who started the fire that killed their father and his adulterous lover after which she disappeared into seclusion, caring for her sister. All is concluded when their mother commits to care for Augistina in her last days, as it is the least that she could do after having killer her adulterous mother.
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