AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

tedg I'd travel half a day to see one of his films properly projected. Even though some of his fantasies are hard to connect to, he would never fail to deliver on the cinematic front. Most viewers think the story here too melodramatic and simple. It does not seem so to me. It has multiple, contradictory nestings. It has metacharacters that temporarily settle on one character or another. It has deeply accessible feminine emotions (at least by film standards), and they are allowed to go down narrative blind alleys like life has it. It has inner film, here in the form of romance novels (and war).We never really know when we are swimming in life or an image of life created in one of the fictions of the characters.But the value is never in the story, it is in how the emotional space is conveyed visually. It is hard to carry a fresh impression of an Almodovar film over the years; those impressions saturate the soul as intended. So I cannot say with authority that this is at least as amazing as his best ("Talk"). It sure seems so; there are several shots that made me watch this three times in a row.Some are a bit too literal for my taste, like the scene that accompanies her madness (med students protesting about sex in the street), or her breakup (bouncing marbles). But I expect these from Pedro. Here is an example of the better kind, an amazing shot at about 55 minutes in. Our authoress leads a double, double life. In her first full dip, she encounters her second publisher (and later ghost) who himself has a pseudonym. The shot is through a staggered glass wall. She is out of sight but there are four reflections of her, two of which are superimposed on him and his reflection. (He invites her to a screaming contest.) It is astonishing. You should know that I see four distinct layers of her being in the narrative here; it is a standard for the women in his later films.Another shot: she has been rescued by her ghostwriter and wakes up in a strange place we don't initially know. It is his bed we later discover. Our establishing shot is through a window over the bed to a several story high billboard of her latest book on a famous store's front. This is a book that she does not yet know exists. Only later do we see that the location is through a window, over a bed in his apartment with him nearby watching her in precisely the way we saw the billboard. But the remarkable thing is not that progression as well done a reveal as it is, but how it starts, with a confusing black and white blur. Only later do we discover what it was: the zebra curtains framing the window. His vision and words do this throughout his films, moving from frame to background to immersion in a reality that merges the foreground and background situations.The next major scene is a performance. We see her maid, unexpectedly as an accomplished dancer, in a seductive dance with her hunky son! It is deep and full of captured motion, though I think it would take a real Spaniard to get the full impression.We soon learn that he stole her last manuscript, one she did not like, and a film is being made of it. We know also, as loyal Pedro viewers, that the film is one of the layers of his work, a few layers of which we have just seen.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

gradyharp Some viewers have placed this exciting film 'La Flor de mi secreto' into the 'not up to standard' Pedro Almodóvar films, a classification this viewer finds difficult to understand. Filmed in the luxuriously colorful palette (especially the repeated use of the color red in every scene) that has become his trademark, set with a musical score that includes Spanish song and guitar and flamenco, and introducing a wildly disparate group of over-the-top women played by a bevy of fine actresses - it all seems echt Almodóvar to me. No, there is not the outrageous side of gender bending that suffuses many of his more popular films, but there is a fine story that resonates throughout this remarkable movie that makes it very much worth the attention of lovers of Spanish cinema.The film opens during the credits on a woman being informed that her 16-year old son is brain dead as a result of a motorcycle accident and two young doctors (including the irrepressible young Jordi Molla) are trying to convince her to allow the respirator to be disconnected and the boy's organs harvested for donor transplant. Sad, tense though this opening is we discover soon enough that the trio are actors making a demo film for medical personnel to learn to deal with such possible family encounters! Point: what appears to be a tragedy becomes a 'farcical depiction' guided by a seminar leader Betty (Carmen Elías). Flash into a different scene and we me Leo (the immensely talented Almodóvar favorite Marisa Paredes), depressed to the extreme over the failure of her marriage to her beloved Paco (Imanol Arias), a NATO 'soldier' who took assignments as far from Leo as possible. Now Leo continues to write her trashy novels she has never had published while clinging to the Paco (she wears his clothes, currently his boots) she cannot recover. Noting that the boots are too tight she leaves her typewriter to flee into the streets to find someone to remove the painful boots and after frustrating encounters with less than helpful people, she turns to her best friend Betty (yes, at a seminar!) who successfully removes the shoes. It seems Paco had an affair with Betty, a fact that further flails at Leo's pain. Betty assuages her by introducing her to a literary editor Ángel (Juan Echanove) who asks Leo to come on staff as a critic - most particularly to review the 'example manuscript' Leo has presented him in applying for the job. The reaction is predictable and Leo is at odds with how to continue her life.Along the way of the story Leo gets advice from her hilarious mother and sister (Chus Lampreave and Rossy De Palma in typical Almodóvar creations!) and from her maid Blanca (Manuela Vargas) and Blanca's son Antonio (Joaquín Cortés) who perform Spanish ballet as a side line (and incredibly well, too - with some wonderful flamencoesque moments of artistic relief). Coincidences happen that allow Leo to ultimately catch a new perspective on her life without Paco - in a most unexpected way.So what is not to love about this Almodóvar opus? For this viewer, absolutely nothing. It is a delight from beginning to end and deserves reconsideration in placement in the gifted director's echelon of works. Highly Recommended.

Philip Van der Veken In a very short period of time I've seen several of Pedro Almodóvar's movies and I've become a fan of his work. I love his style of mixing drama with (sometimes absurd) humor and music. I like the fact that he always knows to make you feel as if you know the characters personally after seeing the movie... Having said this, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed by "La flor de mi secreto".The characters aren't as well developed as I'm used to see in his movies and it's sometimes very hard to care for his main character: Leo Macías (Marisa Paredes). As Amanda Gris (her pseudonym), she is a writer of very successful sentimental novels who deal about love, sex and happy endings. But her personal life is a complete mess. She doesn't want to write this kind of novels anymore and she gets an assignment from a magazine to write a review on the work of... Amanda Gris. Her relationship with her man isn't any good. He works for the Nato, is more abroad than at home and when he's at home he wants to leave as soon as possible. She drinks too much, her mother is a cause of many concerns... She wants to change her whole life, but it isn't as easy as she hoped it would be.Even though the story isn't bad or boring, it doesn't really succeed to be as captivating as I would like it to be. The positive thing about this movie is that you already can see Almodovár's talent for the use of humor and music, great camera work, interesting story telling... sipping through. Things that became more obvious in his later work. This movie may not be the best example of his work, but it is worth a watch. I give it a 6/10.

KGB-Greece-Patras Having seen most of Almodovar films, I have to say I prefer his more hilarious, comical, absurd ones. High heels, Talk to her are two other examples of Almodovar doing almost straightforward "drama" - though not the usual drama fare.That said, this touched me a lot. Without excluding some typically unusual -hillariously funny- Almodovar dialogues and "usual suspects", this film is about pasiion, lust, bitterness, disappointment, joy. It is, after all, about life. Acting of the lead actress is top notch, it's human as far as it goes. No silly plot tricks, no deus ex machina, this is not another sorry a$$ American drama with easy solutions or a bright happy end.Almodovar is one of the greatest artists of film!