Comment on Pedro Almodovar channels his inner Hitchcock in the captivating “Julieta”

Awash in color, feminine psychodrama and heightened emotion, “Julieta” is a classic Pedro Almodóvar film —  or, more accurately, a classicized version of the Almodóvar films his fans have come to adore. Adapted from three short stories from Alice Munro’s “Runaway” collection, this mother-daughter head trip revisits familiar terrain from the filmmaker who gave us the ecstatically lurid melodramas “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “All About My Mother.” But adapting his temperament to match Munro’s signature restraint, Almodóvar tones down his usual over-the-topness in “Julieta,” which owes as much to the sleek, moody thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock as it does to the supersaturated extravagance of Douglas Sirk. The film begins as the title character —  a chic middle-aged classics professor living in Madrid —  is preparing to move to Portugal with her dashing husband, Lorenzo (Darío Grandinetti).