All About My Mother

Rating:
Summary: great movie
Review: I first became a fan of almodovar in Spanish class. We watched the his movie women on the edge of a nervous breakdown so I decided to see all about my mother when it came out. The movie is about a women whose son dies. After that event, she goes back to her home town and reconnects with some old friends. THe movie shows a varied cast of characters from a transexual prostitute to a pregnant nune. It's definetely worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: Refined, Outrageous and Still Almodovar
Review: To like this movie requires understanding the world of Pedro Almodovar. His world is poetry, tragedy, and comedy, with a very particular and twisted way to see and interpret life.
Some black humor, and the ability to laugh at life's situations and overcome them.

This movie brings us twists in the fates of all the characters which are finally linked by one or more situations or persons. In this case, Manuela the lead character is the glue that touches everyone else.

This film embraces compassion, love, loyalty, will and strenghth; it starts with a woman looking for answers as she retraces her past. It ends with that same woman being more wise, and with a second chance for motherhood.

The acting is superb, the filming, the colors and the story has no equal.
This is a movie where you are crying and laughing at the same time, and let yourself feel vulnerable. It is easy to relate to Manuela's passion for living and caring, Agrado's joy of living and making herself more than "likeable", Sister Rosa's softness and warmth,and Huma's superficiality that blooms into loyalty and friendship.

This "family" of actresses work together like a clock, no one out shines the other and each has a unique quality that makes Pedro Almodovar a genius in his time.

Personally my favorite film.

Rating:
Summary: A very poignant film about motherhood
Review: All About My Mother is a very well written and thought provoking film. The film centers around the character of Manuela, a woman whom devotes her love and her life to her only child, Esteban. One night a car runs over her son , devestating her and causing her to reflect upon one of her sons wishes, to meet his father.
Esteban wrote in a journal which he kept by his side "This morning I looked through my mother's bedroom until I found a stack of photographs. All of them were cut in half. My father, I suppose. I have the impression that my life is missing that same half. I want to meet him, I don't care who he is, or how he treated my mother. No one can take that right away from me."

She never told Esteban who his father was, "your father died long before you were born" was all she ever told him. In memory of her son, Manuela leaves Madrid and goes to Barcelona in search of his father. We learn through the course of the film that she had met Esteban while playing Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. She left with Esteban, never telling the man about his son who she named after him before the man changed his name to Lola.
During the search, Manuela comes into contact with many characters and enriches each and every one of their lives. Without giving away too much of the film, the central character brings many people together and teaches the importance of being dedicated to your children and one another despite whatever may occur in this world. It also teaches a great deal about the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. The ending is both happy and hopeful.

Rating:
Summary: Low Believability factor.
Review: I tried - really I did! I tried to enjoy this film given the subject matter and some good reviews. It started out believable then quickly turned into a series of coincidences that I just couldn't swallow. The main character travels back to a life she led 20 years ago and meets a women who just happens to be in the middle of a situation that mirrors her's at that time and with the same man! In this film people enter each others lives out of nowhere and are immediately connected. A good director could have handled such plot turns more fluently.

I certainly don't want to give any of the film away and if you want to escape into a film without giving credence to reality then you'll enjoy this film.

I'm an actor/writer so I enjoyed the 'Streetcar' scenes.
Interesting plot. Very poor execution.

Rating:
Summary: What A Joke!
Review: I think this is one of those films that people think they are supposed to like so they jump on the band wagon without their brains. I kept waiting for the message, the point, or just a good story. What is this diretor trying to say? This movie is just a sequence of events and characters that enter into the life of the protagonist. You can say that for many good movies but this one doesn't make any sense. It is as if the director had a dream and decided to make it into a movie.
This movie proves that clever sets, colorful wardrobes, and good acting dont always equal remarkable movie. There is no alchemy here. In fact, there is no here here.
This is like modern art that your supposed to like because critics say so, but it is really a joke. View this movie objectively detached from it's critical contex and accomplished director, and you will be scratching you head wondering "What was that all about?. Two hours of your life down the tubes.

Rating:
Summary: ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER!
Review: Pedro Almodovar's moving and funny tribute to woman in a film that was universally acclaimed as the Best Foreign film of 1999! Manuela (Cecilia Roth) carefully hid the identity of her son's father, but when the boy is killed she searches for her former lover! This story is basically about the friendships she makes along the way! With Penelope Cruz as Sister Rosa, Marisa Paredes as Huma Rojo, Candela Pena as Nina and Antonia San Juan as Agrado! In Spanish with English sub-titles (the way it should be), this DVD also includes an interview with the director and production notes! A wonderful film that will have you crying your eyes out at the end!

Rating:
Summary: Another fine Almodovar film
Review: I'm not quite sure why the critics have proclaimed this Almodovar's breakthrough work. I think several of his prior works are as good or better. But this is a fine film with a poignant soundtrack, also well worth having. A fine refuge from the endless sludge poured out of Hollywood.

Rating:
Summary: Tragedy, irony, and melodrama side by side - a unique film!
Review: As the saying goes, everyone has at least one performance in them: as themselves. "All About My Mother" is about characters who act both on and off the stage, since their lives are theatrical enough to blur the line. The films' heroines go through numerous tragic events, and yet, in a very strange way, this is an optimistic movie: hurtful happenings don't seem to leave scars, because everything that happens to the characters expresses who they are - their whole life is a play in which they play themselves. "All About My Mother" is a celebration of self-expression and introspection; I particularly enjoyed the scene in which Agrado, a transsexual prostitute, improvises a one-woman show to entertain a grumbling audience - she details her "touched-up" features, including the cost of each operation (rhinoplasty, jaw reduction, breast enhancement - the list goes on), finishing with the words "authenticity is how well your appearance matches your dreams." Thus, Agrado is perfectly "authentic" - she is happy with who she is.

Looking at a plot summary, one can easily conclude that "All About My Mother" is a tear-jerker, or at the very least a heavy-handed black comedy. Pedro Almodovar is a great director - it is neither. Manuela is an organ transplant coordinator at a Madrid medical center. Her seventeen-year-old Esteban is an aspiring writer. In his diary he writes: "I found a bundle of photos in my mother's drawer. All of them are missing a half. That is the half my life is missing as well." For his eighteenth birthday, his mother gives him tickets to a performance of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," starring the famous Huma Rojo. After the performance, Esteban races down the street to get the actress's autograph - and is hit by a car. Manuela cannot deal with her son's death, and boards a train to Barcelona on a quest to find the boy's father - perhaps to tell him that he had a son. In Barcelona, the city Manuela left eighteen years ago while carrying Esteban inside her (much like the heroine of "Streetcar"), she attempts to pick up her old life at the point where she left off - she moves in with Agrado, an old friend, and is soon caught up in a web of others' everyday tragedies no less poignant than her own. After a number of plot twists, she does find her son's father - a contemptible figure Almodovar does not demonize.

Filmed in bright, saturated colors, "All About My Mother" is a feel-good movie, but in a meaningful way. It contantly keeps the viewer on his toes: a comic moment can be interrupted by tragedy - are we expected to laught? to feel sadness? It is very much a women's film - or a film about women, but in a way that defies convention. It has subtle irony and humor, finds room for moments that blend poetry and lurid melodrama and a good deal of profanity (a bizzarre conversation between a nun, an acress, and Manuela is entirely about private parts), and deals astoundingly matter-of-factly with the sexual identities of the characters.

Overall, a fantastic film, wonderfully written and acted - absorbs the viewer and, by the end, returns him to our own, much more mundane world rejuvenated and refreshed.

Rating:
Summary: BEAUTIFUL AND STRANGE
Review: Pedro Almodovar never ceases to amaze with his ever more elaborate creative vision. Here, a woman loses her beloved teenage son. She has been rearing him alone since he was just a baby and has been working encouraging people to donate organs throughout this entire time. Then, as her son is dying, she is faced with the same dilemma-does she donate his organs? Of course. Eventually she cannot live the life she has lived up until that point and moves away from her flat and tries to find a new job, and indeed a new identity. She also half-heartedly searches for the son's father, but only "hints" are made about the father's whereabouts or identity. You do gather, though, that he is not the most savoury of creatures. But he is apparently irresistible.
On the road to changing her life, the woman meets the actress who is somewhat responsible for her son's death (the son tried to get the woman to sign an autograph, and she drove away; the son chased the woman's car without watching for other traffic and was struck down). Eventually the woman begins working for this actress and becomes a trusted friend. She also becomes a trusted friend to a nun (Penelope Cruz) who leaves her chosen profession because she was charmed irresistibly by the same man who was the father of the dead son. As a nun, this was of course forbidden, but she could not resist. As a result she not only becomes pregnant, she contracts HIV.
Overall the story is both comical and quite tragic. Probably the most serious of Almodovar films I have seen. Also, as with all Almodovar pictures, there is no way to describe them and do them justice. They must be seen to be believed.

Rating:
Summary: I love this film
Review: When I am feeling down in the dumps or just need a pick-me-up I often turn to Almodovar films. This one is one of my favorites. I would definitely put it in the top three or four of his films...the others being "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," "Kika," and "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down." This is a must see...