When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.
Acting
Gael García Bernal plays four distinct personas—each one devastating.
Writing
Almodóvar's script folds in on itself like a poisonous origami swan.
Direction
Hitchcock homage so brazen it practically winks at the camera.
Director
Pedro Almodóvar
Gael García Bernal
Ángel / Juan / Zahara
Fele Martínez
Enrique Goded
Daniel Giménez Cacho
Padre Manolo
Lluís Homar
Sr. Berenguer
Francisco Maestre
Padre José
Francisco Boira
Ignacio
Juan Fernández
Martín
Nacho Pérez
Young Ignacio
Javier Cámara
Paca / Paquito
Alberto Ferreiro
Enrique Serrano
Petra Martínez
Madre
Roberto Hoyas
Camarero
Agustín Almodóvar
Limpiador Piscina (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Almodóvar wrote the screenplay in the late 1980s but shelved it for 16 years, fearing it was too dark and too autobiographical—it's his most explicitly personal film about his own Catholic school trauma.
The 'Querer' performance sequence took three days to shoot and was inspired by Sara Montiel, Spain's biggest 1960s star—Almodóvar later said Bernal's hips did things 'no straight man could achieve.'
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