HIGH HEELS
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
HIGH HEELS is a film by Pedro Almodovar. The film stars Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes, Ana Lizaran, Miguel Bose, and Feodor Atkine. In Spanish with English subtitles. Rated R for brief nudity, profanity, and "adult themes."
HIGH HEELS is minor effort by a major director, another of his satirical melodramas, but without his usual compelling coherence. The initial promise is of something off-beat, complex, psychological rich, stylish and stylized. Alas, Almodovar failed quite to live up to this promise. The end result is a vague, cluttered whodunit, with too many side stories and characters that are mostly beside the point.
The point is, after all, the relationship between the legendary pop diva Becky Del Paramo (Marisa Paredes) and her grown daughter Rebecca (Victoria Abril, last seen in TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN), a TV news anchor. Becky hasn't seen Rebecca for 15 years when she returns to Madrid to mount a new show. The two women share more than a blood relationship -- they are destructively competitive of each. In symbol of their belligerent and similarity, Becky wears Armani and Rebecca Chanel.
The two principal women are excellent actors and their characters are presented in some depth and sympathy. Unfortunately, Almodovar chooses to more often tell us who they are, rather than show us. Ultimately, the women in WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN are more complete, more sympathetic, and a whole lot funnier. Instead, although HIGH HEELS has its moments and its lines of dark and ingenious wit, it wants to be tearjerker, but fails to earn the right. As for the major male characters, one is a oversexed, another is sexy, but mostly they are the usual drones in the Almodovar hive.
As a piece of design, HIGH HEELS comes up to the usual high standard of Almodovar films. Likewise, the photography is tropically color-saturated, with sensitive use of natural light.
In general, I would not recommend HIGH HEELS as an introduction to Almodovar. See either (or both of the other films mentioned above, or LAW OF DESIRE, if you want to know what the excitement is about. If you already know and dote on Almodovar, as I do, then you will want to see HIGH HEELS, despite its limitations. In that case, I suggest you seek out a cheap matinee.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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