Talk To Her (2002)

Benigno [relating the story of "Shrinking Lover" to Alicia]: But time went by. Despite her efforts, Amparo couldn't find the antidote and poor Alfredo was shrinking daily. To stop her suffering Alfredo left and went back to his mother....A lot of things happen in the film. But what's important is that after years of remorse and study Amparo finds the address of Alfredo's mother and she turns up there......And Alfredo stays inside her forever.

Benigno (Javier Camara) is a well-intentioned but naive male nurse who spends his days and nights taking care of Alicia (Leonor Watling), who is in a state of coma for the past four years. Marco Zuluaga (Dario Grandinetti) is a travel writer leading a lonely life after separating from his girlfriend. They are seated next to each other at the theater during a screening of "Cafe Muller", and Benigno notices Marco is crying while Marco is oblivious of anyone else's presence.

Marco meets Lydia (Rosario Flores) to write an article on her and her profession of bullfighting. He mentions he doesn't know anything about the sport but knows quite a lot about "desperate" women. A few events follow and they start seeing each other when Lydia has an accident during one of her fights and enters into a coma. Marco spends his days too at the hospital besides Lydia and Benigno is taking care of Alicia, and they eventually become friends out of their shared miseries.

When Marco learns from Lydia's ex-boyfriend that she was about to dump Marco just before her accident to get back with him, Marco leaves Madrid. A few months later Marco learns of Lydia's death and that Benigno doesn't work at the same hospital anymore. He returns back when he learns that Benigno has been convicted of a crime that he probably didn't commit. The crime that we come to learn of in the movie could seem really perverted from a conventional sense, specially when we are unaware of the circumstances. However, the movie treads on a very thin line between what is accepted in society and what was done out of pure love even though it'd seem morally wrong. It's here that the importance of the story of the silent movie within the movie, "Shrinking Lover" becomes apparent.

Talk To Her is well played and it's only in the last half hour where one would start to make sense of everything that has been going on till then. Having said that, the complexity of the movie with crying men and the bonding of men over a love that won't be returned is a little off for my taste. It might very well deserve all the praises and could deserve the 8/10 rating on IMDB, but I could have spent the time in much better ways. For some reason, Pedro Almodovar has never struck me with his so-called brilliance probably because of the way the relationships are portrayed and I can't reveal more without sounding politically incorrect (it's only the 2nd that I've watched, and could very well be the last). To each his own. It definitely doesn't deserve the space on my hard disk anymore.

Rating: 6.5/10