Dark Habits Details

Infinitely more irreverent than Sister Act, Pedro Almodóvar's third feature is a Buñuelian satire on religious hypocrisy bedecked in the most gloriously tacky Catholic kitsch. Seeking sanctuary after her lover's overdose, hard-nosed chanteuse Cristina Sánchez Pascual is shocked by what she finds inside the Convent of Humble Redeemers. But while it's tempting to mock the nuns in Julieta Serrano's charge — with Carmen Maura devoting herself to a menagerie, Marisa Paredes experiencing ecstatic visions and Chus Lampreave devouring pulp fiction — the film is as much about the irredeemable decadence of the secular world as it is about the sins committed beyond the cloisters.

Almodóvar's third feature is slapdash, occasionally slow-moving, haphazardly plotted. That it's also wildly funny,... read more on Time Out