All About My Mother (1999)

Original Title: Todo Sobre Mi Madre

*ing: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz, Candela Peña

Genre: Drama, Romance

Almodóvar's "Best film by far" … well … at least among the one’s I have watched. Generally speaking this film is a melodrama about 3 women and 2 transvestites and each of the character has a saga to narrate. The idea may seem pretty boring but the way Pedro Almodóvar has scripted the whole drama and directed it, makes it a delight to watch, no wonder this film won rave reviews and turned out to be the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ at Academy Awards, BAFTA, Golden Globe and numerous International film festivals. Credit not only goes to the writer director but also the ensemble cast who has done a fantastic job.

The film narrates the story of a grief stricken mother Manuela (Cecilia Roth) who has lost her only child, her son, Esteban. Esteban, used to write a diary till the day he died in an unfortunate accident while chasing his favorite actress Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes) in the hope of getting her autograph. However, Huma is not aware of the death of her fan. Fast forward and Manuela is now in Barcelona searching for her son’s transvestite father, to inform him about the loss of their son. The quest brings her to cross paths with her long last friend Agrado (Antonio San Juan), another transvestite, Rosa (Penelope Cruz) a young nun who has devoted her life for charity and is about to find out that she is terminally ill and Huma, her son’s favorite actress. What really amazes me is that a man cooked up a story about love, emotions and relations between a handful of women, couple of transvestites and intertwined them to make a very interesting tale and to make it even more interesting he scripts and directs it in a fashion that is an absolute delight to watch. The subtle humor that is embedded into the script makes this otherwise heavy melodrama a little light and palatable to most of audiences.

Bottom-line: You simply cannot afford to miss this movie. This is by far one of the best works by Pedro Almodóvar.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185125/

Rottentomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/all_about_my_mother/