Heavy spoilers.
Think of Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother" as a John Irving adaptation, but minus the usual Hollywood cojones-removal surgery. Viewers who recall the transsexual Roberta in "The World According to Garp" might understand that I mean this statement literally as well as figuratively, but the figurative meaning is by far the more important. Like Irving - indeed like Dickens before him - Almodovar unapologetically mixes social commentary, humor, artifice, and sentimentality in equal measures. Yet Almodovar's artistic vision seems a lot less trivialized by its didactic and tear-jerking elements than does his American counterpart's.
Although some might call it imbalanced, the film's integrity stems from its uncompromising feminine viewpoint and its exhaustive and exclusive portrayal of female roles and relationships. As Almodovar's epilogue tribute to actresses and his own mother make clear, males and masculinity take an intentional back seat in "All About My Mother." Of the two fathers we meet in the film, one has such a strong feminine side that he has undergone breast implants and lives as a transsexual - even though his masculine, lower half still exerts enough force for him to have impregnated (over a span of 18 years) the film's two heroines, Manuela (played with extraordinary power and subtlety by Cecilia Roth) and the young Sister Rosa (played winningly by Penelope Cruz in her pre-Tom notoriety days). Rosa's father meanwhile has succumbed to Alzheimer's disease and no longer remembers his daughter (or, thus, his paternity) and has helplessly abandoned her and himself to the control of the film's least sympathetic - because most controlling and masculine - female, Rosa's mother. The other two significant males in the cast include a second transsexual, Agrado, who is Manuela's best friend and although still possessed of his nether member is exaggeratedly female in her/his responses ("I live to please others.") The remaining male, Manuela's 17 year old son Esteban, is the only one whose masculinity is physically uncompromised, but his feminine side is nevertheless evident in his journal writing, in his devotion to the stage - particularly the works of Tennessee Williams, and in his chummy confidant relationship with his mother. Nevertheless, Esteban does provide the film's strongest testimony of the need for gender balance, as he longs to connect to the father he has never known and who exists for him ironically as "lack" - the missing half of all his mother's old photographs.
Unfortunately, Esteban's death marks the end of Act 1. He is run down by an automobile while chasing after an autograph from his idol, the famous stage star Huma, another key female figure in the film. Huma is an aging actress who specializes in victim/heroines - William's Blanche DuBois and Lorca's Bernarda Alba. She is also experiencing a troubled lesbian love affair with her co-star in "Streetcar," a much younger, self-destructive drug addict named Nina. Following Esteban's death, Manuela's attempts to recover from the emotional trauma include working for and befriending Huma as well as a stand-in performance as Stella during one of Nina's drug flame-outs.
Manuela's recovery is punctuated by her occasional dips into Esteban's writing journal where he had begun a work poignantly entitled "Todo Sobre Mi Madre" in honor of still another American work famously centered on female characters, "All About Eve." The mother Esteban idealizes in his journal is the mother we see Manuela struggling to become in the film. That process accelerates when she agrees to shelter and nurture Rosa, who is pregnant, HIV-infected, and unable to face the censure of her mother or her religious order.
Quite in keeping with Garp's claim that "Life is an x-rated soap opera," "All About My Mother" resolves itself in a rush of soap opera-ish complications, coincidences, and confrontations. Rosa dies after naming her unborn son "Esteban"; Manuela becomes the child's surrogate mother and reconciles herself with his dying father, thus redeeming the masculine lack that the first Esteban painfully articulated in his journal; and the child himself makes a miraculous recovery from his HIV birth legacy. It's a mush feast, but it works. Dickens would have loved it.
Think of Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother" as a John Irving adaptation, but minus the usual Hollywood cojones-removal surgery. Viewers who recall the transsexual Roberta in "The World According to Garp" might understand that I mean this statement literally as well as figuratively, but the figurative meaning is by far the more important. Like Irving - indeed like Dickens before him - Almodovar unapologetically mixes social commentary, humor, artifice, and sentimentality in equal measures. Yet Almodovar's artistic vision seems a lot less trivialized by its didactic and tear-jerking elements than does his American counterpart's.
Although some might call it imbalanced, the film's integrity stems from its uncompromising feminine viewpoint and its exhaustive and exclusive portrayal of female roles and relationships. As Almodovar's epilogue tribute to actresses and his own mother make clear, males and masculinity take an intentional back seat in "All About My Mother." Of the two fathers we meet in the film, one has such a strong feminine side that he has undergone breast implants and lives as a transsexual - even though his masculine, lower half still exerts enough force for him to have impregnated (over a span of 18 years) the film's two heroines, Manuela (played with extraordinary power and subtlety by Cecilia Roth) and the young Sister Rosa (played winningly by Penelope Cruz in her pre-Tom notoriety days). Rosa's father meanwhile has succumbed to Alzheimer's disease and no longer remembers his daughter (or, thus, his paternity) and has helplessly abandoned her and himself to the control of the film's least sympathetic - because most controlling and masculine - female, Rosa's mother. The other two significant males in the cast include a second transsexual, Agrado, who is Manuela's best friend and although still possessed of his nether member is exaggeratedly female in her/his responses ("I live to please others.") The remaining male, Manuela's 17 year old son Esteban, is the only one whose masculinity is physically uncompromised, but his feminine side is nevertheless evident in his journal writing, in his devotion to the stage - particularly the works of Tennessee Williams, and in his chummy confidant relationship with his mother. Nevertheless, Esteban does provide the film's strongest testimony of the need for gender balance, as he longs to connect to the father he has never known and who exists for him ironically as "lack" - the missing half of all his mother's old photographs.
Unfortunately, Esteban's death marks the end of Act 1. He is run down by an automobile while chasing after an autograph from his idol, the famous stage star Huma, another key female figure in the film. Huma is an aging actress who specializes in victim/heroines - William's Blanche DuBois and Lorca's Bernarda Alba. She is also experiencing a troubled lesbian love affair with her co-star in "Streetcar," a much younger, self-destructive drug addict named Nina. Following Esteban's death, Manuela's attempts to recover from the emotional trauma include working for and befriending Huma as well as a stand-in performance as Stella during one of Nina's drug flame-outs.
Manuela's recovery is punctuated by her occasional dips into Esteban's writing journal where he had begun a work poignantly entitled "Todo Sobre Mi Madre" in honor of still another American work famously centered on female characters, "All About Eve." The mother Esteban idealizes in his journal is the mother we see Manuela struggling to become in the film. That process accelerates when she agrees to shelter and nurture Rosa, who is pregnant, HIV-infected, and unable to face the censure of her mother or her religious order.
Quite in keeping with Garp's claim that "Life is an x-rated soap opera," "All About My Mother" resolves itself in a rush of soap opera-ish complications, coincidences, and confrontations. Rosa dies after naming her unborn son "Esteban"; Manuela becomes the child's surrogate mother and reconciles herself with his dying father, thus redeeming the masculine lack that the first Esteban painfully articulated in his journal; and the child himself makes a miraculous recovery from his HIV birth legacy. It's a mush feast, but it works. Dickens would have loved it.