Almodovar's surprising adaptation of stories by Alice Munro

I can't imagine why the reviews of Pedro Almadovar's 2016 film, Julieta, were lukewarm at best, as it seemed to me another great work with his signature style and his favorite issues: examining the life of a woman in crisis, and in particular the relationships among women and how they support one another, told in a crisp and stylish narrative style with sparkling view of life in contemporary, largely well-to-do contemporary Madrid and filmed with extraordinary beauty of color composition (just looking at the backdrops of most of his shots and the exciting color combinations is like a trip to a gallery or museum) and even with an unobtrusive yet emotive score. In fact, in some ways this film is stakes out some new territory for Almadovar: the mother-daughter relationship is at the center of the film, and if anything there could be more to explain the daughter's alienation and her eventual life decisions. The eponymous Julieta (played by 2 actresses, one "current day" at about 50 years old and the other in the back story, playing the role ages roughly 20-35) is enigmatic at first but over the course of the film, as she reflects on her life, some of the enigma is clarified, though not fully resolved - which is at is should be. I was surprised and pleased to see in the closing credits that Almodovar based the film on a group of stories by the great Alice Munro; I hadn't make this connection (her stories, from Runaway, are set in British Columbia; Almodovar transposed this setting into NW Spain), but I plan to re-read the stories as I'm curious as to what other changes Almodovar may have made in his adaptation. Nevertheless, it speaks well of his direction and of Munro's writing that such seemingly personal narratives and sufficiently universal to seem and feel at home, "native," in a completely different setting and culture.