Rating: 
Summary: Pure hilarity
Review: If you love black comedy, this is the film for you. Terribly offbeat and irreverent, but attains an addictive quality that is simply irresistible. One of Almodovar's earliest film and one of his best. Carmen Maura is delightful as is the entire cast.
Rating: 
Summary: "Wouldn't happen to have a whip, would you?"
Review: In Pedro Almodovar's fourth film "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" Gloria (Carmen Maura) lives in a tiny high-rise flat in Madrid which she shares with her boorish, lazy taxi-driver husband, Antonio, their two sons--one is a drug pusher and the other is a teen male prostitute, and Gloria's selfish mother-in-law who hoards her own supply of mineral water and cakes in a locked cabinet. Gloria scrapes by with a pittance doled out to her by her begruding husband, and she cleans homes and businesses to supplement their meagre income. Gloria exists to serve and clean up for those she lives with, but underneath that harried housewife exterior boils a woman of passion--the film makes that clear very quickly, but will Gloria ever have the opportunity to be more than an unpaid maidservant? Gloria looks around at the four walls of her squalid tiny kitchen, and wonders how her life got to this point. She copes with her miserable, joyless existence thanks to an addiction to "no-doze" sedatives, but when she runs out of tablets one day, Gloria explodes. Almodovar films always include deep friendships and loyalties between women, and "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" is no exception to this rule--Gloria's best friend and confidante is Cristal (played with great good humour by Veronique Forque). Cristal is a chatty prostitute who dreams of going to America. Her free-spirited ways are a threat to Antonio who can't really contemplate a woman like Cristal--a woman who may rent her body out temporarily, but she still remains owned by no-one. Cristal is Almodovar's prostitute with a heart of gold. She finds extra work for Gloria, and Gloria's friendship with Cristal eventually leads to trouble. Some of the best scenes in the film involve Cristal--her open approach to life is hilarious, and some of the scenes with her clients are priceless--the professor who is doing 'research' and the exhibitionist who needs more than Cristal to make up an adequate audience. While "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" isn't my all-time favourite Almodovar film, nonetheless, I do re-watch it from time to time, and it really is a great film. It is darker than some of his later films, and the bleakness may prove difficult for some viewers to see the film as a comedy. But the comedy is there--black comedy, but comedy nonetheless. The juxtaposition of the television romances next to the squalor of Gloria's real life are marvellously laced throughout the film. Keep an eye open for the ... dentist who wants to adopt Gloria's youngest son, Miguel. Due to themes and language ... this film is not for the kiddies--displacedhuman--www.Amazon.com Reviewer.
Rating:
Summary: almodovar's 1st movie. one of his best
Review: Really histerical and yet sad look at lower middle class spanish dysfuctional family. The pet is a green lizard called "Dollar" the mother is Carmen Maura... much less devoid of artifice as glossiness than later Almodovar movies and much better for that matter
Rating:
Summary: Classic Almodovar
Review: This Almodovar classic from the early 80's is an excellent dark comedy. Great characters such as the next door prostitute, the little redhead girl with telekinetic powers, the cheap grandma, the impotent policeman, the gay dentist, the two writers, and so on make for an interesting watch. Many classic lines are found in this one, like the newlywed who gets her face burnt from her husband spilling coffee on her "I'll never forget that cup of coffee" and "I'm diabetic? oh, I always forget at dinner time?"
This film is not really driven by plot, but rather by the characters' lives. Like all Almodovar movies, it is a piece of art, a meditation and a comical look at life, sexual orientation, coincidence, destiny and love.
Rating:
Summary: One of Almodovar's Best Films
Review: This is certainly not his first film(Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del monton, is his first film). It's a great film that deals with one, if not his favorite subject, women, but not ordinary ones. This housewife(the extraordinary Carmen Maura) deals with all sorts of problems such as her son's preferences for older men, her mother in law's new mascot( a lizard called dinero, money in Spanish) and her husband's murder all in a very hard financial situation and with the help of a very original neighbor. This is certainly one of Almodovar's best films!
Rating:
Summary: One of Almodovar's Best Films
Review: This is certainly not his first film(Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del monton, is his first film). It's a great film that deals with one, if not his favorite subject, women, but not ordinary ones. This housewife(the extraordinary Carmen Maura) deals with all sorts of problems such as her son's preferences for older men, her mother in law's new mascot( a lizard called dinero, money in Spanish) and her husband's murder all in a very hard financial situation and with the help of a very original neighbor. This is certainly one of Almodovar's best films!
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