Asier Etxeandia, left, and Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory (Manolo Pavón/Sony Pictures Classics)

 Pedro Almodóvar is one of the world’s great filmmakers, and he proves it once again in Pain and Glory.

Film director Salvador Mallo’s (Antonio Banderas) physical ailments and social anxiety have completely debilitated his career. He dodders around his house, drinking purees spiked up with ground-up pain medication, and reminisces about his childhood with his mother (the dad was mostly absent and drunk). Occasionally he goes out to meet his manager and refuses all the offers to speak or appear at screenings of his movies, except, as the film opens, for one from some 30 years ago, Sabor, which he loathed initially because he hated the lead actor’s performance. Seeing the film once again, he’s surprised by how well the acting has aged, enough to accept an invitation to an upcoming public screening. It lifts him out of his stupor, and then in a fit of magnanimity, he hunts down Sabor’s star, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia), with whom he had a falling out while making the film.

To reveal more would be denying you a lovely, meandering, melancholy delight of a film. As it moves on and the coincidences pile up, events send Salvador reeling through his past. His problems start when his beloved mother (Julieta Serrano) dies, and Almodóvar physicalizes Salvador’s creative paralysis with actual crippling back pain.

As he tries to escape his present, largely through drugs—medicinal and recreational—he recalls his boyhood in comforting and discomforting ways. Whether it’s the emergence of an ex-lover or the memory of his first erotic awakening, all threads lead back to his hard-to-please mother, and Almodóvar takes his time getting there. Pain and Glory deliberately meanders, taking side routes, stopping here and there until Salvador returns to his former addiction, filmmaking.

Banderas is the extraordinarily handsome glue that holds everything together. He does his best to schlump down. His acting is fine, and he absolutely convinces you he’s in immense physical pain. It’s tremendously difficult to play depression and remain an engaging protagonist, and Banderas does it with élan. In the flashbacks, Penélope Cruz does a wonderful job as his doting and unyielding mother.

This is muted Almodóvar. Even though many of his signature moves and motifs appear, they do not overwhelm the plot or the performers, which occasionally happens in his films. The colors are bright, but not overwhelmingly so. The performances stay close to earth, the actors’ feet firmly planted on the ground. The most out-there character is a perfectly believable heroin addicted, down on his luck actor, Alberto, the only one who gets to let loose. And the plot twists, though a bit incredible, culminate in deeply moving scenes as Salvador reckons with the loss of his mother and his dependence on getting high.

There are rough bumps here and there, and it feels disjointed and haphazard as you watch it. But eventually, you give in. You are lulled into its world. Almodóvar also knows what he loves: melodrama, absurd chance that stretches credulity, and, of course, cinema. And you get plenty of it here.