Pablo Quintero makes sexually explicit homosexual films. Antonio (Antonio Banderas) is an obsessed fan and they have a fling. Pablo still keeps Juan as his boyfriend. Antonio becomes ever more disturbing. Pablo's sister Tina is a transgender female aspiring actress raising their niece Ada whose mother has gone away.

This is an early Antonio Banderas and I love his energy. He has a magnetic cinematic presence. I wish the lead actor is equal to him. He's a little blah but his character could have been something great. This could be a great movie about Antonio. It ends up more as a lesser movie about Pablo.

I guess that most people will know what they are letting themselves into. And I say this, because this movie was shown at the Berlin Film Festival this year (2010) as retrospective. I didn't know anything about the story and was quite surprised by the beginning of the movie. And I can tell you, that I'm sure that quite a few people who watch mainstream movies would have walked out of this movie, if they were in this ... but as I said, many most have known.

Apart from a few walk-outs, most people stayed (maybe the even knew the movie, because they had seen it before?). And it changes pace after that "offensive" beginning (thankfully) and becomes more of a personal story. One with many weird and quirky characters. All portrayed very nicely by the actors. And while quite a few scenes have visual or dialog highlights, the movie itself seems to have dated.

It's not only the predictability of the plot, but while the weird mannerisms of the characters are nice, they also tend to obnoxious at times too. As one of the first movies Almodovar made, this is pretty solid, but it won't be everyones taste (not that his newer movies are ... just saying)

This film is centred on two siblings; Pablo, a gay film director who makes homo-erotic films; and his sister Tina, who is a transsexual lesbian who dreams of being an actress and is raising a ten year old girl named Ada who is the daughter of her former girlfriend. After Pablo's lover, Jaun, goes away for the summer he begins a relationship with Antonio, not suspecting that the latter will get dangerously jealous of his love for Juan.

As with most films by director Pedro Almodóvar the plot is secondary to the characters; it is there to put the characters in an interesting, and fairly melodramatic positions. This of course requires interesting central characters and here we get those. As is often the case they are a fairly unconventional group. There are things that may disturb some viewers such as Tina talking about her incestuous relationship with her father who persuaded her to get a sex change before leaving her... particularly shocking is that she doesn't feel abused. Pablo's relationships with Juan and Antonio are surprisingly frank for a film made in the eighties. The cast is solid with Eusebio Poncela and Carmen Maura really impressing as Pablo and Tina; Antonio Banderas is great as Antonio and young Manuela Velasco impresses as Ada. Things do get melodramatic towards the end but that doesn't feel out of place; in fact it is relatively mild compared to some of Almodóvar's other films. Overall I'd say this won't be for everybody but it is a must see for fans of Almodóvar's work.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.