Film Review: All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre, 1999)

Pedro Almodovar had his reputation as one of the grand masters of Spanish and European cinema firmly established in 1990s. The hard work on building such reputation was, however, done in 1980s with his most irreverent, original and playful works. In 1990s his opus became repetitive and self-referential, but some of such films still enjoyed favour among critics, won prestigious awards and, like in the case of 1999 drama All About My Mother, even had impressive box office results.

Protagonist, played by Cecilia Roth, is Manuela Echevarria, Argentine nurse who lives in Madrid with her teenage son Esteban (played by Eloy Azorin). Manuela’s line of work includes convincing relatives of dying or braindead patients to allow their organs to be harvested. By terrible twist of fatre, she too is going to be asked the same. Esteban, sensitive youth who is obsessed with theatre and wants to write the book about his mother, receives a special treat for his 18th birthday. Mother takes him to watch famous actress Huma Rojo (played by Marisa Paredes) performing in A Streetcar Named Desire. While attempting to catch her autograph Esteban is struck by taxi and later dies. Grief-stricken Manuela tries to find new purpose in life by trying to get back in touch with Esteban’s father (played by Toni Canto), who became transwoman under new name “Lola”. Trail leads to Barcelona where she receives help from an old friend, transwoman and prostitute Agrado (played by Antonia San Juan). Two of them also find Rosa (played by Penelope Cruz), Catholic nun who runs shelter for prostitutes while dealing with own personal issues like HIV infection and being made pregnant by Lola. Manuela tries to help her, and also gets in touch with Huma, who has issues of her own – she is hopelessly devoted to her lesbian lover and fellow actress Nina Cruz (played by Candela Peña) who suffers from heroin addiction.

All About My Mother won almost all the awards that were to be won – Goya Award for Best Film, European Film Award for Best European Film and Oscar for Best Film Not in English (with Almodovar at Cannes Film Festival having to settle only with Best Director Award). Whenever a film receives such lavish praise beforehand, viewer’s expectations rise higher than they are to be realistically met. This thing happened with All About My Mother which turned out to be a disappointment. The main reason for such underwhelming impression might be in Almodovar’s attempt to, as some of his more enthusiastic cheerleaders among critics’ community said, “grow up” and start making “proper” serious dramas instead of irreverent and iconoclastic dark comedies that made him famous in previous decade. Almodovar, by doing so, tries to make compromise between his new and old tone, and this compromise fails. All About My Mother is too dark and depressive to be a comedy, yet, at the same time, has too many bizarre characters and plot developments to be taken seriously by audience. Almodovar tries to bring something different from his earlier works to screens – instead of interior sets he uses exteriors of Barcelona, arguably one of the “coolest” cities in Europe. At the same time, his film appears to be some sort of love letter to 1950s Hollywood, especially melodramas of Douglas Sirk. But it only hides the problems with his script with many of melodramatic subplots being underwritten or undeveloped. There is bright spot of humour here and there, and the cast makes this film watchable. Antonia San Juan, who was relatively unknown at the time, leaves much better impression than highly respected Argentine actress Cecilia Roth or Penelope Cruz at the zenith of her stardom. Success of All About My Mother had less to do with Almodovar’s talent and more with political sentiments of critics’ establishment which interpreted film as feminist and promoting what was in 1990s still euphemistically called “alternative lifestyles”. Most of the viewers who want to familiarise themselves with Almodovar should start with his earlier works, while this film should be recommended only to his most devout fans.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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