Pedro Almodovar's The Flower of My Secret

If I were to describe the bare bones of this film---a depressed romance writer's husband is leaving her, she gets a job at a newspaper to trash her own books---you might not want to see it. You might also miss the point of the film altogether. In Almodovar's own words, this is a film about abandonment. The theme was powerful and palpable, though the film never seems to decide how seriously it wants to take itself. There are many funny moments to this movie, and though it concludes with a happy ending, the ride along the way is, indeed, rocky. Leo, clearly has a melodramatic flair, on one level the viewer is not surprised that her husband is leaving her and that her friends and family have largely abandoned her: who could live with someone who walks in the world without any skin? But when her husband accuses her of being selfish as he is leaving her---which she unquestionably is---one might wonder how she or anyone else in her situation could be anything else? It does not matter if bombs are falling in Bosnia when one's marriage is falling apart.

( The technicolor tragicomic melodrama of Pedro Almodovar... )