Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fantastic!

Excellent, smart action film.

Best movie ever!

Released internationally as 'High Heels', the actual title of this Pedro Almodóvar comedy translates as 'Distant Heels', an idea of significance towards the end of the film as events take a sharp dramatic turn. Whatever the case, summing up what exactly this film is about is not easy as it is an unpredictable ride throughout (in the best sort of way) with lots of surprise revelations and plot twists and turns; the characters also often do what we least expect of them. In short, the film might be best thought of as Almodóvar's take on 'Autumn Sonata' - which even gets explicitly mentioned - as the plot focuses on a successful television news anchor and her resentment of her diva mother who traumatised her as a child. As the plot unfolds, we learn that she married one of her mother's former beaus. Did she do it for revenge or to humiliate her mother or was it simply a coincidence? As the plot thickens and something happens to her husband, even further questions arise with regards to her intentions, and it is perhaps best not to say more to avoid ruining a fresh experience of the film. While the narrative sometimes feels all over the place and not everything that occurs is especially credible (especially the jail that seems more like a summer camp!), the film has an undeniable charm to it. Miguel Bosé also has one surefire interesting character that raises questions about personal identity and role-playing, which is part of what the film is about: the two female protagonists coming to accept their roles of mother and daughter, career aspirations and other concerns aside.

Pedro Almodovar seems to be aiming for the excesses of female drama even in his future explorations of male passion, seen in films like CARNE TREMULA (LIVE FLESH) and LA MALA EDUCACION (BAD EDUCATION). A hybrid caught between his lurid comedies of the Eighties and the darker, more textured dramas that would present him in a more mature light after the success of LA FLOR DE MI SECRETO (THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET), TACONES LEJANOS (HIGH HEELS) finds Almodovar continuing to explore the female psyche in a story that's an equivalent of a spicy gazpacho made with combinations of the histrionics of Joan Crawford in MILDRED PIERCE and the melodramatic garishness of a Douglas Sirk melodrama with a subtle reference to Ingmar Bergman's HOSTONATEN. Throw in the usual suspects -- a mother (with a name that recalls high-drag), Becky del Paramo (Marisa Paredes), her estranged daughter Rebeca (Victoria Abril), Rebeca's husband Manuel (Feodor Atkine) who is one of Becky's former lovers -- a little murder and a female impersonator (Miguel Bose), and you have a sizzling story that is vintage Almodovar.

I Saw this film in my Spanish Cinema Class...In school....My Teacher Mr.Moore says that this is one of his favorite Pedro Almodovar movies...I think it was pretty good...Some of the parts were a little out there but then again there is always a part in his movies thats just totally out there in some way. I have to say that Pedro Almodovar is probably my favorite Spanish Director out there.

I saw this movie the other day in a film school class, and I hadn't seen an Almodovar movie before but went in expecting it to be good. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a pointless film with only a couple of laughs mixed in with two hours of sheer boredom. High Heels is just a collection of random scenes that might have worked in their own separate movies but together don't add up to any kind of meaningful whole at all.Or so I thought. Then, the next day, my film professor spent the entire class period explaining all of the movie's hidden little details, like how the mural depicting stereotypical flamenco dancers in the background of the drag queen scene is some kind of commentary on the lack of identity that Spain as a nation has developed under fascist rule. Apparently, the whole movie is chock full of clever little visual tricks and references like this.Great, but you know what? It's still a bad movie. It takes more than depth and complexity to make a good film--you still need to give the audience a reason to keep paying attention, something to interest the viewer enough to actually care about all the subtle tricks. High Heels gives us strange, off-beat characters but keeps them in mostly mundane situations recycled from other movies, and Almodovar doesn't seem to be using them to make any kind of point. What is the significance, for example, of the Hitchcockian surprise character revelation that occurs towards the end of the film? Why is that even in there? Just to surprise us?There is one funny scene that has to do with a news broadcast. And that's it, that's the only entertaining moment. The rest of the movie is just nonsensical filmic references and visual cues that apparently exist only for the sake of showing us how smart Pedro Almodovar is. But no matter what my film professor says, it takes more than self-indulgent trickery for a movie to be good.