 Starring: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Parades, Candela Pena, Antonia San Juan, Penelope Cruz
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Year Of Release: 1999
Plot: Young Esteban is run over and killed after going to see a production of A Streecar Named Desire. His distraught mother, Manuela, heads to Barcelona to try and find Esteban’s transvestite father, but discovers he’s disappeared after robbing Agrado. Manuela ends up becoming the assistant to Streetcar actress Huma, while also helping to look after a pregnant nun. |
Hollywood movies are often heavily criticised for their lack of characterisation. It’s a valid point, as most major movies feature fairly interchangeable character with only a couple of distinguishing features, and most of the time even these characteristics are pretty generic. The idea behind this is to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, by ensuring characters are ‘everyman’ enough that rather than people genuinely liking them because they understand them, there’s nothing about them to turn people off.
However movies like Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother show what can be achieved by really investing is characters and making them come to life, partly because if you can create people the audience genuinely likes and feels for, you can take them to unexpected places and get them to swallow a plot that would otherwise seem completely over the top.
If you ignore the wonderful characters, All About My Mother is basically a feature-length episode of Jerry Springer, with the subtitle ‘I’m looking for the transvestite boyfriend of my dead child while trying to help the nun he also knocked-up and organising the life of an lesbian actress (who was partly responsible for my kid’s death) and her druggie girlfriend’. It’s the sort of plot that it would normally be extremely difficult to get away with, but thanks to the fabulous characters, you barely even think about how over the top the plot actually is.
Very quickly you begin to feel for Manuela (Cecilia Roth), who’s desperately trying to come to terms with the death of her son. The film slowly builds up a picture of this woman and her journey to understand her past and find a way to have a future. Likewise pregnant nun Rosa (Penelope Cruz) should seem like an OTT character who’s only there to be a bit shocking and make the movie seem a bit risky, but she isn’t. You totally understand how she got herself into the predicament she faces, and also feel for her situation and her relationship with her parents.
However why I think All About My Mother is particularly impressive on the character front is because of Lola, the transvestite father of both Manuela’s dead son and the child that Rosa is expecting. We don’t actually see him at all except for five minutes near the end, but the film has carefully built up a complex picture of him, as both a hedonistic rogue who steals, infects people with HIV and runs away, yet whose attitude and life is also attractive and acts as the fulcrum around which the lives of several of the character revolves. It means that by the time he actually appears of screen and gets only a few lines, you feel like you know and understand this man, making it an incredibly powerful moment.
Pedro Almodovar’s careful investment in his characters (he includes numerous references to strong female character pieces of the past, such as Streetcar and All About Eve) allows him to take you through a beautifully realised story that should seem ridiculous and filmed in an over the top, camp way, but which actually feels incredibly grounded and ‘real’.
It’s the exact opposite of most Hollywood movies, where the characters aren’t really that important, and all the interest is created by what happens to them. It’s partly why movie stars are so important to the system, as much of the time the characters are so likely drawn, that a charismatic, good looking presence is essential to keep people watching.
However films like All About My Mother show how much more can be added to the viewing experience by creating fascinating characters that you really feel invested in, and while it has a very different sort of plot to the most Hollywood films, it wouldn’t hurt the studios to learn a few lessons from writer/directors like Almodovar about making the characters in a movie riveting, rather than just relying on stunts and special effects.
TIM ISAAC
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