Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6750 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-02-28
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: Catalan, English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
After her son is killed in an accident, Manuela (Cecilia Roth) leaves Madrid for her old haunts in Barcelona. She reconnects with an old friend, a pre-op transsexual prostitute named La Agrado (Antonia San Juan), who introduces her to Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a young nun who turns out to be pregnant. Meanwhile, Manuela becomes a personal assistant for Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), an actress currently playing Blanche DuBois in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire. All About My Mothertraces the delicate web of friendship and loss that binds these women together. The movie is dedicated to the actresses of the world, so it's not surprising that all the performances are superb. Roth in particular anchors All About My Mother with compassion and generosity. But fans of writer-director Pedro Almodóvar needn't fret--as always, Almodóvar's work undermines conventional notions of sexual identity and embraces all human possibilities with bright colours and melodramatic plotting. However,All About My Mother approaches its twists and turns with a broader emotional scope than most of Almodóvar's work; even the more extravagant aspects of the story are presented quietly, to allow the sadness of life to be as present as the irrepressible vitality of the characters. Almodóvar embraces pettiness, jealousy and grief as much as kindness, courage and outrageousness, and the movie is the richer for it. --Bret Fetzer

DVD Description
All Esteban wants for his 18th birthday is for his mother to tell him about his father.

Video Description
DVD Special Features

Languages: Spanish Feature Length: 97 mins
Ratio: 2.35:1
Original Theatrical Trailer

Customer Reviews

Profound frivolity!
This may indeed be Pedro Almodovar's peak as a film-maker. Although he has always walked the line between high comedy and sentimental drama, in 'All About My Mother', Almodovar has created an unusual and funny array of characters that are instantly likeable.

Almodovar's love of comic confrontation and female fantasy have often brought him derision from various critical quarters. Some critics bemoan his seeming obsessions with kitsch surfaces and camp frivolity. It says something about the power of his film-making when mariginal societal characters such as these make us feel a greater affection and empathy for them than we do for the majority of mid-west suburbanite families that are portrayed on screen. We might seem a bit cynical in the English-speaking world that so many people can become such trusting friends in such a short space of time, but the movie is less about buddies and more about the maternal need that all of these women have to give and receive love.

The performances vary from the exceptional Antonia San Juan as a transvestite prostitute to the above average Penelope Cruz as a pregnant nun.

It's difficult to imagine Pedro Almodovar making movies in his 70's still rendering the touching and profound from such light-hearted frivolity. But it is something to look forward to.

So good I am now teaching it to Film Studies students
This is one of the finest films I have seen in years. It combines genuine pathos with moments of tender humour. It is a very moving portrait of the sacrifice women are compelled to make for those they love. Superbly acted throughout, anyone not moved by this film for the entirety of its duration has a heart of stone (and that is from a cynic easily annoyed by mawkish tosh).

Beautifully profound
I have seen this film so many times that I can talk alongside them and I can't even speak Spanish! This is a moving film that appeals to even the hardest of critics and the hardest of souls. The whole Street Car Named Desire theme is perfect for the film and blends in beautifully...I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see a brilliantly directed film with great actors and beautiful scenery.