A local reviewer called "Bad Education", "Vertigo" with drag queens. That's a much more appealing depiction than the off-putting montage of images that make up the trailer. After two black comedies, Almodóvar has returned to the psychological thriller. The effect is not unlike a Hitchcock script directed by Luis Buñuel by way of early Brian DePalma, particularly "Sisters", which upped the ante on Hitchcock by adding a bit of shock value. Almodóvar's shock value comes from the Gothic horrors of a Catholic boarding school education and its ramifications on a pair of students, one who grows up to be a filmmaker and the other who grows up to become an actor/writer. Almodóvar's slyly subversive humor permeates the film: faux Bernard Herrmann title music, a twisted homage to "Breakfast at Tiffany's", a pivotal scene set in a bizarre museum, and his trademark garish color schemes. The homosexual lovemaking provokes a nervous MPAA into issuing an NC-17 rating for scenes that heterosexually would have earned a mild R or perhaps a PG-13. "Bad Education" is the work of a master craftsman who hasn't lost his impish sense of fun.
Review of Bad Education
