ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (TODO SOBRE MI MADRE) (Sony Classics) Starring: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Penelope Cruz, Antonia San Juan, Candela Pena, Rosa Maria Sarda, Eloy Azorin, Toni Canto. Screenplay: Pedro Almodovar. Producer: Agustin Almodovar. Director: Pedro Almodovar. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes, drug use) Running Time: 101 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Pedro Almodovar has always been a filmmaker with a world view that is -- to engage in a bit of understatement -- unique. He loves the blurry lines of sexuality; he loves the complexities of romantic relationships. He even seems to have some strange fascination with organ donation (if memory serves, THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET featured a role play strangely similar to that in ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER). Most of all, however, he loves women, and has dedicated most of his films to their psychology. Yet even when it comes to a subject like half the human race, Almodovar won't do things the easy way. Take the decidedly non-nuclear family created in ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, for example: a single mother; a pregnant, HIV-positive nun; a transvestite prostitute; a lesbian actress; and the actress's heroin-addicted lover.
Almodovar's critics have often accused him of being more fond of the conspicuously provocative than with genuine emotional content. ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER proves that he can ground his wild side in honest humanity. Cecilia Roth stars as Manuela, the single mother whose 17-year-old son Esteban (Eloy Azorin) wants to know the truth about the father Manuela has long claimed died before Esteban was born. Manuela intends to tell the story, but Esteban is killed in an accident before she can. The tragedy sends Manuela on a trip to Barcelona -- the city Manuela fled when she learned she was pregnant -- in search of Esteban's father. There she meets up with the transvestite prostitute Agrado (Antonia San Juan), an old friend, as well as a kindly young nun named Rosa (Penelope Cruz). Then Manuela learns that Rosa is pregnant, and that the father was another transvestite prostitute named Lola. And the plot thickens ...
Or at least it gets dense with women on the verge of various breakdowns. Along the way Manuela becomes a personal assistant to the renowned stage actress Huma Rojo (Almodovar stalwart Marisa Paredes), helping Huma both professionally and in her tempestuous relationship with co-star Nina (Candela Pena). Manuela also tries to ease tensions between Rosa and her judgmental mother (Rosa Maria Sarda), who herself has to care for an increasingly senile husband (Fernando Fernan Gomez). In a sense, it's a lot like an art house spin on broad Hollywood dramedies about the power of sistah-hood, with the male characters either utterly peripheral or half-female themselves. The women cope with tragedy, grow and learn, depending on each other for support. In true Sister Sledge fashion, they are fam-a-lee.
The reason ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER doesn't inspire world-class eye rolling (like, for instance, HANGING UP) is that Almodovar really does want to make his characters complete. Cecilia Roth in particular is exceptional as the grief-stricken mother who finds some peace by bringing peace to others. Much of the comic relief is provided by the tart-tongued Agrado, performed with depth beyond bitchy clichs by Antonia San Juan. Almodovar wraps the story in references to ALL ABOUT EVE (from which the film draws its variation-on-a-theme title) and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (the play in which Huma and Nina are performing as Blanche and Stella, respectively) to underscore the more interdependent relationships of his characters. These women aren't out to screw each other over, nor are they going to be victimized by men. They're strong, and prepared to survive.
Almodovar's all-encompassing embrace of womankind could strike some viewers as inherently undramatic -- and in a sense, they'd be right. Aside from the accident that claims Manuela's son, there really isn't a pivotal plot moment in ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER. It's more of a general observation of the maternal instinct, with a magical medical cure thrown in for good measure. And it's hard to describe except to say that it works -- as character study, as off-beat comedy, as defense of unconventional matriarchy. You won't find many films that are simultaneously this warm and fuzzy and this weird. In the Almodovar universe, you can hear those women roar in numbers too big -- and variations too strange and wonderful -- to ignore.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 materna-teases: 7.
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