All About My Mother
All About My Mother (Spanish: Todo sobre mi madre) is a 1999 comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and starring Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz and Rosa Maria Sardà.
The plot originates in Almodóvar's earlier film The Flower of My Secret (1995) which shows student doctors being trained in how to persuade grieving relatives to allow organs to be used for transplant, focusing on the mother of a teenager killed in a road accident. All About My Mother deals with complex issues such as AIDS, homosexuality, faith, and existentialism.
The film was a commercial and critical success internationally, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in addition to the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Awards for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Direction (Almodóvar). The film also won six Goya Awards including Best Film, Best Director (Almodóvar), Best Actress (Roth).
Plot
Manuela is an Argentine nurse who supervises donor organ transplants at Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid. She is also a single mother to Esteban, a teenager who aspires to become a writer.
On Esteban's 17th birthday, he is hit and killed by a car while chasing after actress Huma Rojo for her autograph following a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire, where Rojo portrays Blanche DuBois. Manuela agrees with her colleagues at work that her son's heart be transplanted to a man in A Coruña. After following her son's heart to its new recipient, Manuela resigns from her job and travels to Barcelona in search of her son's father, Lola, a transgender woman whom Manuela had kept a secret from Esteban, just as she had never told Lola about their son.
In Barcelona, Manuela reunites with her old friend Agrado, a transgender sex worker who is warm and witty. She also meets and becomes deeply involved with several new friends: Rosa, a young nun who works in a shelter for sex workers who have experienced violence and is pregnant with Lola's child, but is also HIV positive; Huma Rojo, the actress whom her son had admired; and Nina Cruz, Huma's co-star and lover, who is struggling with drug addiction. Manuela's life becomes entwined with theirs as she cares for Rosa during her pregnancy and works for Huma as her personal assistant. She even acts in the play as an emergency understudy for Nina during one of her drug abuse crises.
On her way to the hospital, Rosa asks the taxi to stop at a park where she spots her father's dog, Sapic, and then her own father, who suffers from Alzheimer's. He does not recognize Rosa and asks for her age and height, but Sapic recognizes her. Rosa dies giving birth to her son, and Lola and Manuela finally reunite at Rosa's funeral. Lola (formerly known as Esteban), who is dying from AIDS, talks about how she always wanted a son, and Manuela tells her about their own Esteban and how he died in an accident. Manuela then adopts Esteban, Rosa's child, and stays with him at Rosa's parents' house. The father does not understand who Manuela is, and Rosa's mother introduces her as the new cook who is living there with her son. Rosa's father then asks Manuela about her age and height.
Manuela introduces Esteban, Rosa's son, to Lola and gives her a picture of their own Esteban. Rosa's mother spots them from the street and confronts Manuela about letting strangers see the baby. Manuela tells her that Lola is Esteban's father, but Rosa's mother is appalled and says, "That is the monster that killed my daughter?!"
Manuela flees back to Madrid with Esteban as she cannot continue to live at Rosa's house any longer. The grandmother is afraid that she will contract HIV from the baby. Manuela writes a letter to Huma and Agrado saying that she is leaving and apologizes once again for not saying goodbye like she did years before. Two years later, Manuela returns with Esteban to an AIDS convention. She tells Huma and Agrado, who now run a stage show together, that Esteban had been a miracle by becoming HIV-free. Manuela then says she is returning to stay with Esteban's grandparents. When Manuela asks Huma about Nina, Huma becomes melancholic and leaves. Agrado tells Manuela that Nina returned to her town, got married, and had a fat, ugly baby boy. Huma rejoins the conversation briefly before exiting the dressing room to go perform.
Wikipedia article: All About My Mother ↗
External links
- Review All About My Mother at the Internet Movie Database
- All About My Mother at All Movie Guide
- {{{2}}} at Box Office Mojo
- All About My Mother at Rotten Tomatoes
- Review All About My Mother at the Turner Classic Movie Database
- All About My Mother: Matriarchal Society – an essay by Emma Wilson at The Criterion Collection
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