Cast:
Carmen Maura (Pepa Marcos), Antonio Banderas (Carlos), Julieta Serrano (Lucía), María Barranco (Candela), Rossy de Palma (Marisa), Kiti Mánver (Paulina Morales), Guillermo Montesinos (the taxi driver), Chus Lampreave (the Jehovah's Witness portress), and Fernando Guillén (Iván) Written and Directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
Review:
"I was trying to talk about abandonment, about misunderstanding between women and men. The idea came from The Human Voice, a play by Jean Cocteau from 1930, but in a very free way. I often start writing with an idea of my own, or someone else’s, and in the process discover something else I really want to write. The first idea disappears – but it has an important place because it’s the thing that pushed you."
It's funny to consider the number of filmmakers who went against the wishes of their parents. Born in Calzada de Calatrava in Spain to a winemaker and transcriber, Pedro Almodóvar actually was sent to a religious boarding school as a child because they wanted to put him on the road to being a priest. However, he instead developed a love for the cinema, with a key influence being Luis Buñuel. His upbringing led him to a deep appreciation to the women around him. He moved to Madrid against the wishes of his parents in 1967 but had to teach himself when the National School of cinema got closed by the Franco dictatorship. He worked a variety of jobs, most notably as an administrative assistant with the Spanish phone company Telefónica. He did work in the theatre scene and wrote for newspapers before making his first films in 1974 with a handful of short films made through a Super-8 camera. Through the help of several followers of his work for funds, he made his first feature with Pepi, Luci, Bom in 1980. He steadily made features all throughout the decade before forming his own production company with his brother in 1986. But it was this film (known in its native Spain as "Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios"), his seventh as a filmmaker that he received considerable attention beyond his country; he cited the screwball comedies of the 1940s/1950s as key to the origin of the film, which had him garner his first Academy Award nomination. Incidentally, while the film had some inspiration from the play The Human Voice, the influence of the play was already present in Almodóvar's previous film Law of Desire (1987). Over his career (which still goes on even at the age of 75), the two-time Academy Award winning director has made over two dozen films in a wide variety of genres, once describing his cinema as one of "mixed genres" (calling his films camp is kind of funny, since apparently "camp" isn't even a word in his native Spain).
There is something fascinating in the lurid ways one can make a melodrama feel so alive and so dazzling. The energy and passion on screen is quite palpable, particularly for those who like to experience screwball movies that moves along with a spring in its step for 89 minutes with plenty to enjoy in screwy people where the strangest things really can happen suddenly. Complicated people are as weird as you and me because melodrama is present wherever you can look in the pageantry of life, complete with a considerably colorful set with the apartment that dominates most of the setting. This was the last of a string of movies Maura made with Almodóvar (the two had a falling out for years during production), which I'm sure is quite interesting for those watching at the end of that rope. At any rate, she makes for a curious performance when it comes to frantic commitment that rolls along with the other people in strange situations devoured by passion and missed connections. Her weary nature at the growing absurdity (escaped nuts, secretive lawyers, you get the idea) is a funny one to see play out with commitment in the art of suffering and nerves, suffice to say. You've got a couple of upstarts with Barranco, Banderas and de Palma (the former had a few TV productions and shorts behind her, the middle got his start with Almodóvar's Labyrinth of Passion [1982] and the latter had two other movie roles) that do inspire a number of laughs in the charm that arises quickly in their wandering nature that they play right to the point that arises when one knows people that can't help but bring you right into strange chaos when you actually say it aloud. Serrano is usefully deranged to help the contrast between our lovable goofballs and, well, other nuts (to say nothing of Guillén, who pops in and out with exquisite cad energy). The chase sequence near the climax is especially amusing in that delightful sort of manner that comes in frantic energy and timing that even has a good punchline to close it all out in moving on. There are just a handful of lines that just bounce with the disposition of someone who has a pretty good idea of the foibles that come with hang-ups and hanging on that is endearing in all of those chuckles. As a whole, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a pretty fun farce, managing to roll along with curiosity and humor that goes through the eyes of a woman with refreshing commitment and insight for a good time.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
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