All About My Mother: Movie Review (2008)

Midway through Pedro Almodovar’s excellent, Academy Award-winning film, “All About My Mother,” a transvestite named Agrado (Antonia San Juan) stands before a crowd and addresses the countless surgeries she’s undergone to become an “authentic woman.”

“A woman is more authentic the more she looks like what she has dreamed for herself,” she says. And then, leveling the crowd with a raised eyebrow: “It costs me a lot to be authentic.”
Almodovar knows it can take great courage to realize one’s true individualism; he knows that finding the strength to be different can lead to happiness, but often not without first going through an onslaught of pain.

The characters he presents time and again onscreen may come from society’s fringe, but the director’s great triumph is in how he blurs the line between his colorful characters and those considered to be conventionally “normal.”

Indeed, Almodovar knows there’s a middle ground where all walks of life unite--the universal search for love and individual truth.

“All About My Mother” is about that search, but it’s just as interested in its infinite variety of women -- nuns, prostitutes, flamboyant actresses, deeply devoted mothers, drugged-up divas, emotionally damaged drag queens.

Three classic films influence it: Jean Negulesco’s “How to Marry a Millionaire,” Elia Kazan’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” and Joseph Mankiewitcz’s “All About Eve,” scenes from which are glimpsed early on with Bette Davis blowing smoke at the screen and speaking Spanish--which is so surreal to behold, it's a moment that could have been directed by Fellini.

Since the film hinges on a surprise Almodovar literally hurls at the screen, those who prefer not to know shouldn’t read further.

The film opens in Madrid with Manuela (Cecilia Roth) and her beloved son Esteban (Eloy Azarin) celebrating his 17th birthday with a trip to the theater to see a performance of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” After the show, they wait outside to get the autograph of the show’s fiery star, Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes). It’s a scene that ends in tragedy with Esteban being struck down and killed by a car.

The film then becomes Manuela’s journey to find Esteban’s father, a transvestite living in Barcelona, and, of course, the journey to find herself in the absence of her son.

Marked by its outstanding performances, its wit, its big heart and Almodovar’s clear love and admiration of strong women, “All About My Mother” is among the director’s best.

Grade: A