The combination of Pedro Almodóvar, making his 17th movie, and Oscar-winning Penélope Cruz, in their fourth collaboration, ought to be enough to effect a Spanish triumph on the wider art market.

But this noirish tale of amour fou seems more likely to appeal to the director’s faithful fans than those going to see what all the fuss is about.

There’s a film within a film and a plot that swerves this way and that in time with great skill. But even Cruz, looking as good as she has ever done, sometimes in a Warholesque white wig and perilously high heels, may not be able to persuade everybody that this is one of Almodóvar’s masterworks.

Cruz is Lena, a former callgirl and aspiring actress who has got herself under the thrall of older, wealthy and obsessive producer Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), which makes her love for blind writer-director Harry Caine (Llius Homar, the amorous priest in Almodóvar’s Bad Education) more than a little fraught.

It’s now the Madrid of 2008 but, back in 1984, Lena and Harry, then fully sighted, made a comedy called Girls and Suitcases, which Ernesto produced and jealously cut to pieces afterwards.

The question is, what on earth is going to happen to the trio, especially since Ernesto’s gay son tails the lovers with a video camera. It’s all done with Almodóvar’s usual fluid brilliance and always looks a treat in the hands of Mexican Rodrigo Prieto, his new cinematographer. But it seems to be referencing the director’s past work, and the kind of cinema he admires from others, like Hitchcock and Rossellini, rather than breaking new ground.

Some will say “who cares?” when there’s such skill and Cruz too on display. Others, however, might reflect that Almodóvar, approaching his seventh decade, has little more to say.