Talk to Her

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Alex M One of the best movies I've ever seen. It's unfortunate that Almadovar no longer creates such compelling films. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/05/24 Full Review Kyle M During the first viewing, it dozes apathetically until the prompt gets truly realized and grasped as a social statement treading delicately on certain themes that convincingly deserves a second viewing with the newfound mindset. Appreciation has already been set over how it was remarkably well-made buoyed by fine performances albeit convoluting characterized connections blurred. (B) Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 10/12/23 Full Review Matthew B Pedro Almodovar is a director who makes films about the area of human life where the boundaries begin to blur. His works deal in the hinterland between conformity and transgression, the normal and the outrageous, the probable and the impossible, high art and lowbrow humour, naturalism and soap opera, masculine and feminine, conventional morality and deviance. Talk to Her is no exception to the rule. Indeed it deals in other areas of experience that lie between the borders – the unclear defining line between reality and fantasy, love and delusion, and even life and death. The heroines in Talk to Her are not exactly dead, but they are not alive either. They spend most of the movie in a coma. We see the life of one woman before her accident and flashbacks to both women, but for the main part of the action the women lie in a bed with their eyes closed. There are sparks of life in both women. Even while in a coma, a patient can open her eyes, yawn and perform basic body functions. She can still have her period, and it is a source of great concern for the hospital staff if she does not. In this state it seems as if they are no longer the women they were, and can never be restored. This does not stop the men from hoping. A doctor tells Marco Zuluaga (Darío Grandinetti) that medically it is impossible for his girlfriend to recover, but he cannot help showing Marco a magazine article in which a long-time coma victim did exactly that. The men who love the women are also obliged to keep their faith in the impossible. Pedro Almodovar's movies are renowned for putting the women as the central point of focus. This time the women cannot be the lead movers in the action. We have instead two men who take on the feminine role as carers and a woman who competes in the masculine world of bullfighting. Both men have very feminine personalities too. Marco cries in the movie – a lot. Initially he is crying for memory of a former lover, and his regret that he cannot share moving experiences with her anymore. He has an expressive face that conveys strong emotions, even when not spoken. Marco is crying when we first see him. He is watching a ballet performance that (appropriately enough) portrays men removing obstacles from the path of unseeing women. In this movie, the women do not see the men, even when they are awake. Both men have a heroic level of unselfishness, yet maybe there is something self-indulgent in their willingness to devote themselves to others. They seem to seek fulfilment in supporting women who need them. Benigno takes on extra shifts to help his busy colleagues so he can be near Alicia, and describes the years he has spent looking after her as the richest of his life. What would happen if those women woke from their trance-like state, and made clear what they really wanted? Would they still want the man who has dedicated his time to them? The story challenges our conventional judgements, and tries to set them on their head. If an essentially good person does a bad act for good reasons and with good results, then how bad can it be? How far do we condemn him for it? The answer to this question may differ from viewer to viewer, and their response to the ending of the movie will be affected by that judgement. Some viewers may be moved to tears, others moved to disgust. I belong in the former category. This full-frontal assault on accepted standards of morality is characteristic of most of Almodovar's films. While Talk to Her is more restrained than the comedies that first made Almodovar an international name, and does not even contain more blatantly camp characters such as the transsexuals in All About My Mother, it still bears many of the familiar trademarks of the director. It is filmed in bright colours, and the action is interspersed with songs and dancing, lending the film a theatrical look. Large text looms across the screen to indicate the passage of time. The story contains extraordinary plot twists and mischievous humour. The camp and the kitsch elements mingle freely with the intellectual and artistic content. However few of Almodovar's films achieve that balance of opposites better than Talk to Her. I wrote a longer appreciation of Talk to Her (with spoilers) on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/talk-to-her-2002/ Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/22/23 Full Review Jav N Engaging in a conversation with ‘Talk to Her,' one finds a seemingly simple narrative that unfolds into a captivating tale of complexity. The film's story development is nothing short of amazing. The exaggerated poetic character and the art of decoupage contribute to the movie's uniqueness, adding layers of charm to the storyline. The film's open-ended narrative forces you to think about its characters and prompts you to flash back to their memories, providing a deeper connection to their journeys. Notably, ‘Talk to Her' cleverly begins and finishes in the same theater location, creating a sense of circularity and life's continuous loop, further inviting viewers to explore the intricacies of human connection and emotion. Additionally, the portrayal of obsessive love and its connection to the main character's profound loneliness is psychologically complex. This complexity compels viewers to emotionally empathize with the characters, immersing themselves in a thought-ggprovoking exploration of love and solitude. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 09/10/23 Full Review Jos Miguel G The most human and complex story told by Pedro Almodovar. A masterpiece Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 11/13/22 Full Review Esra Y Till final scene movie grips you from the opening scene and flows smoothly but it leaves a bitter taste that in the end it's implied the girl would start some kind of relationship with bystander, best friend of her assaulter. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/04/22 Full Review Read all reviews

Talk to Her

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