Todo sobre mi madre (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)

All About My Mother stands apart in Almodóvar's oeuvre as the film that ticks all the boxes in the ebullient imp's list of interests, and as such works as a crash course in Almodóvarology. It contains: tough but warm female leads, a co-dependently close relationship between mother and son, AIDS, drug addicts, transsexual prostitutes, a self-mythologising actress, nuns and a comic sidekick. If this seems overly reductionist, suffice it to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, since by the time he got to this the director had refined the mix through numerous dry runs. The central story of the bereaved mother who moves to Barcelona to get away from her memories takes the weight of all the other elements without obvious encumbrance, and the switches in tone between vivacity and tragedy are executed sure-footedly. Yes, Almodóvar does continue making more or less the same film over and over again, but there's no denying his command of the medium.

7/10