A woman who lives a double life finds that being a successful romantic novelist does not necessarily bring happiness. Her husband does not love her, her best friend seems distracted and her mother and sister are too busy bickering to notice that anything is wrong. She stops writing and finds solace in the bottle but finds an .. Read more
| Starring | Marisa Paredes, Juan Echanove, Carmen Elias, Rossy de Palma |
|---|---|
| Director | Pedro Almodovar |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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A woman who lives a double life finds that being a successful romantic novelist does not necessarily bring happiness. Her husband does not love her, her best friend seems distracted and her mother and sister are too busy bickering to notice that anything is wrong. She stops writing and finds solace in the bottle but finds an unlikely rescuer putting her on a collision course to a new emotional entanglement.
| Starring | Marisa Paredes, Juan Echanove, Carmen Elias, Rossy de Palma, Chus Lampreave, Kiti Manver, Joaquin Cortes |
|---|---|
| Director | Pedro Almodovar |
| Studio | OPTIMUM HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 41 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Spanish |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 12 Jun 2006 Production year: 1995 |
| Format | DVD |
Truth versus fiction is the concern of this drama from Pedro Almodóvar, which constitutes a marked change of pace for the cult Spanish director. Almodóvar tones down his usual camp satirical sensibilities to tell the engaging story of a romance novelist (Marisa Paredes) whose work is suffering because her marriage is falling apart. And that's not all; her best friend is betraying her, her half-blind mother and her sister are driving her crazy, and her maid's son has plagiarised one of her manuscripts. Paredes gives an extraordinary performance as the writer in crisis, suffering gloriously in a lush tragicomedy that boasts a scorching script, observant details, sharp visual contrasts and moments of truly biting humour.
Rather like his heroine, Almodóvar abandons his camp frivolities for something more mundane; it is sometimes effective, but as artificial as ever and not entirely convincing.
This is one of the less well-known recent Almodovar movies and it is a great predecessor to All about my mother and Talk to her, movies with which it is related in a number of ways. It is full of emotions and contained powerful performances by the actors (especially Marisa Paredes and Juan Echanove). It is melancholic at some moments, irresistibly funny at others, excruciatingly painful many times and warm and intense all along. Wonderful.
A more low-key and sombre effort from Almodovar, which offers a great role for Marisa Paredes but ultimately doesn't lead us anywhere too interesting. She plays a romance novelist who heads into a depressive funk when she is spurned by her military husband. Unfortunately the film goes right along with her, but at least the director's trademark style and some amusing moments with the lead character's combative mother and sister help it get by.
The name of Pedro Almodóvar’s production company is El Deseo: Desire films. It’s a quality much in evidence in the vividly carnal, erotic, outrageous and anguished melodramas in which he specializes. Desire – a word that contains lust, love, venality, revenge and ambition – propels his characters as they careen from crisis to crisis, which must be why Almodovar’s heroes and (more often) heroines are almost always in a state of heightened agitation. If we had an... Read more