Offbeat drama about an occupied single mother called Manuela (Cecilia Roth) becomes involved with family problems . Young Esteban (Eloy Azorin) want to become a writer and also to discover the identity of his father, carefully concealed by his beloved mother . Later on , there occurs a tragedy , then Manuela leaves Madrid for Barcelona , there hooks up old and new friends and ,just may be , contacts the long estranged father (Tony Canto) the boy never knew and her son's favourite stage diva (Marisa Paredes) . As Manuela gradually regains the will to live through her involvements with the lives with others such as a transvestite (Antonia San Juan) and a pregnant nun (Penelope Cruz) . Part of every woman is a mother/actress/saint/sinner and part of every man is a woman.Agreeable film full of feeling , outlandish characters , haunting mood-pieces , Spanish Neo-realism , and sense of style but not totally satisfactory , including conventional pitfalls , profanities and a lot of sexual references . The picture deals with off-the-wall as well as semi-ironic melodrama , familiar absurdities, dysfunctional roles and many other things ; featuring a feminist heroine of classical proportions . The picture is pretty well but turns out to be inferior to Almodovar's subsequent entries such as ¨The skin I live in¨, ¨Volver¨ , ¨The bad education¨ or ¨Talk to her¨. The result is undiluted scabrous drama , crazy strings of plots , sharp images , plenty of sexual dialogs in constant references to blow-jobs and perverted sex . Filmmaker piles up on the contrivances , turns and twisted events so that the picture to have success . It's a piquant look at lower-middle classes involving strange and complicated situations during its half an hour runtime . Pedro Almodóvar dedicated his movie to Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands and Romy Schneider . And being influenced by American films such as ¨All about Eva¨, ¨A streetcar named desire¨ and by director Douglas Sirk . Nice interpretations by all cast , as Cecilia Roth as a hard-working single mummy , Penelope Cruz as a young nun bound for El Salvador, but instead finds out she is pregnant and Antonia San Juan as likable transvestite , she splendidly plays a monologue based on a real life event as when the electronic system of an theater failed, the director suspended the show , then an actress decided to give the news to the audience and make them an offer: if they'd stay, they could listen to the narration of her life . Furthermore , a notorious support cast such as Marisa Paredes , Rosa Maria Sarda , Fernando Fernan Gomez , Candela Peña ,Manuel Lozano , Juan Jose Otegui and other delightfully played roles . As usual in most of Pedro Almodóvar's movies, there is a small role for Agustín Almodóvar, his brother and producer of the film, who plays a cab man . Sensitive musical score by Alberto Iglesias , Almodovar's ordinary ; including some marvelous songs . Colorful and luxurious cinematography by Alfonso Beato . The motion picture was realized in his peculiar style by Pedro Almodovar ; he often uses symbolism and metaphorical techniques to portray circular story lines though here he directs a special melodrama , including his ordinary touches . Almodovar directs throughout with splendid zip and he usually portrays strong female characters and transsexuals and along his career getting some important international prizes . His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release . In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company : El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world , making his films very popular in many countries . Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar who made successes such as Labyrinth of passions , Law of desire , Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown , Bad education , All about my mother , Talk to her , Broken embraces , The Skin I Live In and many others . The latest from acclaimed Spanish director , Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited (Los Amantes Pasajeros) competing for the inaugural best European comedy honor during the upcoming 26th edition of the European Film Awards .

All About My Mother is a Spanish film that was written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.It stars Cecilia Roth,Marisa Paredes,Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz and Candela Peña.The movie deals primarily with femininity together with complex issues like complex issues such as AIDS, transvestitism, faith, and existentialism.All About My Mother is story of a woman and her circle of friends who find themselves suffering a variety of emotional crises. Manuela is a single mother who has raised her son, Esteban, to adulthood on her own and has come to emotionally depend on him. One night, Manuela and Esteban take in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire; after the show, Esteban is struck and killed by a passing motorist as he dashes into the street to get an autograph from Huma Rojo, who played Blanche. Emotionally devastated, Manuela relocates to Barcelona in hopes of finding her ex-husband, who is now working as a female impersonator. Manuela becomes reacquainted with old friend La Agrado, a transsexual, and is introduced to Sister Rosa, a good-hearted nun who has to contend with her considerably more cynical mother. While looking for work, Manuela becomes acquainted with Huma Rojo. Huma, on the other hand, has troubles of her own, most involving her drug-addicted significant other, Nina. All About My Mother displays Almodóvar's trademark visual style and a unusually strong sense of character-driven drama that mixes with themes and characters from Streetcar Named Desire And All About Eve.It was a wonderful and poignant story of love, loss and compassion centered on women.Also,it was also a intelligent sensibility with wicked sense of humor.The acting was also brilliant of all the cast involved.And most of all,the direction of Almodóvar makes this film a masterpiece Spanish cinema classic.

First I must say "Curses Netflix!". It isn't that I don't love the service, but my DVD got stuck with four minutes to go in the film and I could not get this disk to play that portion--so I finally just read it on website. So, this is a rare case when I did not see all the film...just 98%. Curses...I must first point out that this is NOT a film to watch with your mother or priest. It is jam-packed full of morally ambiguous people and situations that are bound to offend. This is NOT surprising, as director Almondovar seems to LOVE to offend or at least challenge the viewer--and this is a frequent theme in his films. It covers topics like AIDS, transvestite prostitution, drug abuse, nuns getting pregnant and codependency. This is NOT a film for the faint-hearted!! HOWEVER, despite a bizarre plot that I won't even try to summarize, I must also point out that this is among the best-acted films I have ever seen...period. The film sure packs an emotional wallop as well and leaves the viewer marveling at the cast and the expert direction. A must-see for anyone wanting to see great acting...simply great.

Almodovar's films come across as soap operas. In his case, they are usually very well written, directed and believable soap operas. There's a lot of insight shown about the female mind and female-female relationships, in "All About My Mother". Colorful here, refers to three things: the warm colors of the art direction, photography and the colorful characters of the story. "Volver" (2006) was my first Almodovar film and it made an impression upon me. "All About My Mother" approaches the storytelling excellence of "Volver".In a way, Almodovar style and insight is very similar to Joseph L. Mankiewicz, part of whose famous awarded film "All About Eve", is used in this film. There's also references to stage acting and the famous play: "A Streetcar Named Desire". There is also inspiration taken from the title of "All About Eve" itself.What's best about the film is it's about human relationships and done with honesty and sensitivity.