Wonderfully offbeat film!

Memorable, crazy movie

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This movie is hard to rate as I have very mixed feelings about it.I definitely give it points for being very artistic and original. There are great colors in the setting, all the interweaving of Streetcar Named Desire and the story itself is very unusual so it is also not predictable.But amazingly with this unpredictable story the movie that came out was so boring. I didn't really feel for these characters. Only for Manuela at first when her son dies and she deals with it by going to find the father, who is a cross dresser. Yet I don't get why she did it. I understand she would do it when her son is alive to show him that half that is missing from his life no matter how ugly it is. But Lola didn't deserve the satisfaction. The character is absolutely despicable. The rest are also not that great. Rosa is boring and I feel bad for her mother. Agrado is supposed to make me smile but I dislike this character as well.

This film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000. Its title is a variation on All About Eve, and the film seems to an homage to Bette Davis. It often refers to All About My Mother as well as A Streetcar Named Desire, perhaps an homage to Tennessee Williams, too.The film begins in Madrid where a single mother, nurse, and organ transplant coordinator, Manuela (Cecilia Roth), lives with her sensitive 17-year-old son, Esteban (Eloy Azorín), an aspiring young writer. It is his birthday and the two watch a Spanish-dubbed version of All About My Mother on TV. It is then that Esteban apparently changes the title of his memories (Notes) to All About My Mother. Since Esteban is an aspiring writer, Manuela gives him a copy of Truman Capote's Music of Chameleons as an early birthday present. Later, she takes him to see, A Streetcar Named Desire, which is currently running in Madrid. The play moves Manuela to tears; Esteban asks her why she is crying; she tells him that she and his father once worked in that same play together, with her playing Stella and his father playing Kowalski. Esteban demands to know more about his father; and she promises to tell him later that night, as a favor to him on his birthday. After the play, Estaban is killed in a car accident while trying to get an autograph of the play's leading actress, Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes). With his death, she is asked to donate HIS heart to an unknown recipient at the same transplant center where she works. Depressed and alone, Manuela decides to return to the Barcelona of her youth. There, she hopes to find Estaban's father and tell him all about his son. Upon arriving in Barcelona, she has a taxi take her to the red light district. There, she runs into Agrado (Antonia San Juan), an old friend of hers who used to live with her husband, Lola, before Lola robbed Agrado of all of her belongings to run off to Argentina. (Agarado and Lola were a transsexual couple; both were men who became women at the same time.) After seeing (and literally being rescued by) Manuela, Agarado decides to stop whoring and get a real job. To find new jobs, the two friends go to a Catholic Mission in the district. There, they meet Sister María Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a young nun who is about to be sent to El Salvador to replace a nun that was killed there by guerrilla fighters. Agrado and Manuela tell Rosa that they are willing take almost any job. But, knowing there are no jobs, Rosa tries to get her mother to hire Manuela as a cook (or perhaps, help care for her father who has Alzheimer's. Thinking Manuela came into the mission as a whore, Rosa's mother (Rosa Maria Sardà) tells them that she doesn't need any help. After the two leave Rosa's parents house, Rosa becomes sick. Manuela finds out that Rosa is about three months pregnant, and Manuela accompanies her to a doctor's office to get her first pregnancy checkup. There, Rosa asks for an AIDS blood test since she works in a high-risk job as a social worker. Two weeks later, she learns that she is HIV positive. When Manuela asks if she knows who the father is, Rosa tells her that it is Lola. Here, Manuela goes into a slight rage asking (telling) her that Lola has been shooting drugs for YEARS and asking her why she didn't know any better. With Rosa starting to 'show,' she has to leave the mission and stay with Manuela. A big part of Manuela's job is to keep as much of Rosa's pregnancy as simple as she can for Rosa's conventional mother. (After all, it is bad enough that her unwed daughter, a nun, became pregnant at all. Why tell her that the father is a HIV-positive transsexual drug addict, too?) One night, Manuela goes to see Streetcar Named Desire again in Barcelona (with the same cast that had played in Madrid the night Esteban was killed). When Manuela goes backstage to see Huma Rojo in person, she passes Huma's personal assistant, Nina (Candela Peña), running out the back door. Nina, who plays Stella in SND is also Huma's lover and personal assistant. But, she is totally unreliable since she is hooked on drugs. Huma needs to find Nina and asks Manuela to help find her. After they find her in the red light district, Nina and Huma drive off leaving Manuela behind. One night when Nina is bombed out of her mind, Manuela tells Huma that SHE can play the part of Stella and IS ABLE to pull it off in one performance, saving Huma's contract. When Nina returns, she accuses Manuela of sabotaging her career, just like Eve Harrington did in AAE. When Huma asks Manuela for an explanation, she breaks down and tells them about her husband, her son and how he died in the car accident while trying to get Huma's autograph in Madrid. When Huma asks Manuela to continue as her assistant, Manuela tells her that she must spend time caring for Rosa and suggests that Agrado take the job, which she does.Since I am getting close to the story's climax, I will stop the plot description here to avoid stepping into any possible SPOILERS. However, I will say that plot continues to play out like an extended soap opera on a vivid pastel stage. All issues are 'resolved' in one way or another. But, to me, the story is still very contrived and way too complex to be effective in delivering any sort of central message or emotion. One could almost read any message into the movie. Maybe that is why the film appeals to so many people: I mean, I'm just saying.....

I was so close to thinking that Manuela and Lola were back together after finding each other and learning that their son was killed! However, unfortunately in this sad film, everyone is nearly dropping like flies around Manuela. I was so surprised to have seen Penelope Cruz on this, I have never heard her speak Spanish before so this is the first time I've experienced her speaking Spanish on an actual film! I think if this film was more concentrating on the other characters rather than Manuela and Lola is nothing. That's why I gave this a 7 instead of a 10. It needs kinda a facelift because the story was kinda all over the shop tbh..............

A single mother, Manuela, raises her son Esteban for 17 years. On his 17th birthday, he is hit by a car while trying to get the autograph of a famous theatre actress. In his diary, Manuela finds out that on his birthday, Esteban expressed his wish to know who his father was, regardless of what kind of person he is.And so begins Manuela's journey from Madrid to Barcelona to find the father of her child, a transvestite, who never knew he had a son in the first place. "Todos sobre mi madre" is a beautiful Spanish language film, that at first glance seems like a completely random and superficial spotlight. But if you look beneath the surface, this movie examines issues about religion, morality, gender identity and even awareness of trans-gender issues. All complex and intricate topics to explore interwoven into the simple story of a woman trying to connect with her past. There are tears, there is laughter but nothing is over-emphasized over the other. You are both happy and sad while watching this film, but there is no imbalance of emotion towards one or the other. Intriguing and original for its time.