Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Overrated and overhyped

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I can understand what this whole movie is going for, the bare camera shots, the excessive colors and the excessive drama. It all seems like it could be quite fun, when looked from aback. Unfortunately the glue that would tie this all together is the wit, and there is obviously a good amount of wit, unfortunately its not particularly interesting in English subs, much of the conversations come off as trying too hard to be funny. This is just how I feel about it, and I think there is a good chance the issue is that i'm not a native language speaker. The worst I can say about a movie is that its boring, unfortunately this approaches that description, I am however leaving some leeway because I think it is my own fault for not speaking native Spanish.

A woman's lover leaves her, and she tries to contact him to find out why he has left. She confronts his wife and son, who are as clueless as she. Meanwhile her girlfriend is afraid the police are looking for her because of her boyfriend's criminal activities.What I have to say about this film is really a side note. I could talk about the film as a whole, and how it strikes me as a sophisticated soap opera. But that is not what I found interesting.I found it interesting that the film kept saying "Shiite terrorist" rather than "Muslim terrorist". This makes me wonder if people in other countries are more knowledgeable with regard to different faiths. Most likely, yes. But it is my impression that few people in America know the difference between Shiite and Sunni, and even fewer knew before 2001.

Pedro Almodóvar's films are always about crazy or half-crazy women meddling themselves in uncommon events of everyday life but this one breaks the record. Three more or less crack-brained women (plus a fourth one who will spent most of time in the movie deeply asleep for having drunk "gazpacho" with a lot of sedative drugs) cause a big mess the most of it taking place in a Madrid luxury apartment and the whole thing because the ex-husband of one of them (she has recently come off a lunatic asylum or clinic) and lover of another one has recently left the latter. This comedy, full of burlesque episodes and scenes has also as characters two police officers who end up by falling deeply asleep because they have also drunk the ill-fated "gazpacho", the son of the jilter and his girlfriend (the one deeply asleep as above referred). This comedy is funny and makes the most of a series of incredible plot coincidences such as for instance the awkward blond taxi driver who is always there by chance any time anyone needs a taxi and the circumstance of the son coming to the apartment of the jilted woman because she has advertised it to be rent in an estate agency. Since they didn't know each other this leads also to a funny situation. A passable movie indeed and funny enough.

With the Toronto Film Festival going on this weekend, it is appropriate that this is my second venture into Pedro Almodóvar's films, as it won the People's Choice Award at that festival in 1989.Almodóvar wrote and directed this very funny film that is a far cry from Matador. Antonio Banderas is back, this time with a Lyle Lovette haircut, as the son of a philandering husband (Fernando Guillén), who also cheats on his girlfriends.Carmen Maura (Volver0 leads a superb cast as the girlfriend that just got dumped. She is hilarious as she appears to be losing it. In comes her girlfriend (María Barranco), who is afraid of being arrested for harboring Shiite terrorists (this is 1998!). Add Banderas and his mother to the mix, and you have one laugh after another.It even had a great line reminiscent of "A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle.":Ana (Ana Leza, who was married to Banderas before Melanie Griffith came along): I'm fed up. I'm gonna get myself some quick cash, buy myself his bike and split. With a bike, who needs a man? Pepa (Carmen Maura): Learning mechanics is easier than learning male psychology. You can figure out a bike, but you can never figure out a man.It is almost misogynistic to say the movie was very funny as all the women were hysterical, but it was.