ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (Todo sobre mi madre)

Let me just say that I loved loved LOVED THIS FILM!

Yes, All About My Mother was my favorite film of 1999 (and for once, there were a lot of fine films to choose from that year). This film shows a new maturity as a filmmaker for Pedro Almódovar, Spain's most famous modern director (known probably most widely for 1988's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).

Manuela (the gorgeous, tragic-yet-strong Cecilia Roth) is a single mother who has just lost her beloved teenage son Esteban, hit by a taxi carrying his favorite stage actress (Marisa Paredes). Manuela goes back to Barcelona to find and tell Esteban's father, whom she had left when she had found out that she was pregnant all those many years before. Well, in true Almódovar style, Esteban's father is a transsexual who is now known as Lola. As Manuela tries to find Lola, she forms a circle of "women" friends, including transvestite La Agrado (the screamingly hilarious Antonia San Juan), a nun played by luminous Penélope Cruz, and her son's favorite actress, who is wracked with guilt when she hears Manuela's story.

Almódovar is probably the only director I can think of whom is able to create a story where he can throw in AIDS, a transsexual's monologue about the cost of plastic surgery, drug addiction, lesbian actresses, Alzheimer's disease, beautiful boys, a pregnant nun, and a not-very-passable queen named Lola, and make an audience laugh and cry through the whole movie.

All About My Mother is touching, gorgeous, heartwarming, and moving... some complain a bit soapy and melodramatic, but I absolutely loved it!