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The Flower of My Secret (1996)
Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins
Synopsis: THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET is a surprisingly restrained film (no drag queens, raunchy sex, or murders) from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, and is considered one of his best. Romance novelist Leo (Marisa Paredes) experiences a nervous breakdown when she realizes her U.N. peacekeeper... THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET is a surprisingly restrained film (no drag queens, raunchy sex, or murders) from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, and is considered one of his best. Romance novelist Leo (Marisa Paredes) experiences a nervous breakdown when she realizes her U.N. peacekeeper husband (Imanol Arias) no longer loves her, and the morbid novel she has just finished will never be accepted by her profit-minded publisher. Depressed, alcoholic, and suicidal, she begins to write for a Spanish newspaper under a pseudonym, starting with a scathing critique of her previous, best-selling work. The paper's hard-drinking, overweight editor Ángel (Juan Echanove) falls in love with Leo, never realizing the "flower of her secret"--that her other pen name is Amanda Gris, and that she is the writer of the romance novels he loves. The delightful cast includes Rossy De Palma and Chus Lampreave--hilarious as Leo's constantly bickering sister and mother--and Carmen Elías as her best friend, a woman who trains doctors in soliciting organ donations from grieving relatives. Almodóvar fills this beautiful film with sharply realized scenes, rich helpings of Spanish flavor, and a vibrant compassion for his characters. [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Marisa Paredes, Carmen Elías, Juan Echanove
DVD Info
Release:
Dec 4, 2005
DVD Features:
- Region (unknown)
- Keep Case
- Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85
Audio:
- Dolby Stereo - Spanish
- Subtitles - English - Closed Captioning
- Subtitles - English, French - Optional
Reviews
If it isn't as successful as his very best work, neither is it a failure -- and there are certainly enough Alomodovarisms to bring a smile to anyone's face
Dramatizes the contentious relationship between fiction and reality.
I found this dramatization a mature Almodovar work, perceptive and cutting through in an incisive way to the everyday problems in life that wear people down.
Though The Flower of My Secret is a slight work, it is a pleasing return to form.
The movie is full of familiar Almodovar fare, but it feels freshened.
Depicts the magical turnaround in the life of a writer of romance novels.
Seems to go in a dozen directions at once but ties up in the final reel into a tight, cohesive and enjoyable whole.
An intimate, beautifully wrought work, it reflects a new maturity in Almodovar's work and is one of his best pictures.
Almodovar has created a film that offers hope to all mad lovers who need it.
The film is attentive as well to the clichs that constitute reality and cinematic realism. It manages such complexities by highlighting Almodovar's own exceptional visual sensibility, which crosses over all kinds of boundaries.
It's a witty, intelligent scramble, and it's beautifully mounted.
It's bland as often as it is affecting, and presents little that's new or original.
If Leo appears to be doing some more or less orthodox movie-style suffering -- crying jags, a suicide attempt and the like -- perhaps that's just what she's supposed to be doing.
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