Thoughts on Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

 

via Tenor

*Pepa (Carmen Maura) catches her commercial on TV*
"Hello. I'm the mother of the notorious 'Crossroads Killer.' When my son comes home after one of his famous crimes, his clothes are just filthy. *holds up blood-drenched shirt*"
*The housewife lets in the police*
"Where are the clothes your son wore --"
"At the time of the murder?"
"Right here. Sparkling clean. *reveals freshly white shirt, which the lawmen smell*"
"No trace of blood."
"Or guts."
"Unbelievable."
"*grabs detergent box* Ecce Homo. It's unbelievable."

Pepa lost her bed because of Iván (Fernando Guillén). Lucía (Julieta Serrano) lost her mind and her youth. Candela (Maria Barranco) could lose her freedom because the guy she hooked up with is a Shiite terrorist. Marisa (Rossy de Palma), engaged to Iván and Lucía's adorkable son Carlos (Antonio Banderas), loses her man to Candela and her day to Pepa's planned overdose cocktail. Paulina (Kiti Mánver), a shrewd lawyer, nearly loses a Stockholm trip because of Candela's accidental cronies and Lucía's intended revenge on Iván. You know, at some point, you just have to say, "Honey, he's not worth it." Writer-director Pedro Almodóvar smartly lets his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown reach those conclusions in their own time.

I set out to write about women in 1988 movies and ended up coming across a parallel through line of writer-directors transitioning from cult success to the mainstream. Almodóvar joins the Johns: Waters, Demme and Cleese (Tim Burton is next). Breakdown isn't a perfect movie -- it's too easy to guess why Pepa is initially so insistent on talking to Iván, yet the non-mystery lasts until the final moments -- but it's brilliantly funny, well-plotted and oh so stylish. It's easy to understand why Almodóvar shocked and delighted audiences in Spain and around the world. What other filmmaker could find the laughs from heartbreak, insanity and terrorism?

Maura is excellent as Pepa, capable of both nurturing her garden and animals raised two by two, plus nearly destroying her phone and answering machine, not to mention whipping records from on high with enough fury to nearly knock out Paulina. Serrano is both heartbreaking and terrifying, Barranco a constant laugh riot and de Palma and Mánver perfect at playing haughty but human. Also entertaining are Chus Lampreave as Pepa's concierge, a woman who takes her Jehovah's Witness faith seriously; Ana Leza as Ana, who ends up in the heat of Pepa vs. Lucía; Guillermo Montesinos as Madrid's most accommodating (and profitable?) taxi driver and Loles León as a secretary Pepa enlists at the start of her two-day attempt to reconnect with Iván.

Breakdown depends on coincidences, like Carlos and Marisa being the ones who check out Pepa and Iván's penthouse. Or Pepa getting the same cabdriver not once, but three times. What's assured, however, is that the movie is a work of genius, intoxicating and a bit stupefying.

"Chief, this stuff has been spiked."

"What's in the gazpacho?"

"Tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, onion, one garlic clove ..."

*the cops pass out*

"Oil, salt, vinegar, some day-old bread, and water. The secret's in mixing it right. Iván loves the way I mix it. I made it for him."

Recommended.

Thoughts:
-- " ... You went a little too far. You didn't behave properly. Men keep taking advantage of me. I always realize it when it's too late. Look how the Arab world treated me. I sure didn't deserve that."
-- Box Office: This was a blockbuster in Spain, grossing $8 million. It did nearly as well in America, to the tune of $7.1 million.

-- Awards Watch: Nominated for 16 Goya Awards, this won as a feature film, for Maura and Barranco's performances, the screenplay and its editing. Outside Spain, it was nominated for the Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for foreign films, losing all three. The first two went to Pelle the Conqueror, the last went to Life and Nothing But.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "A perfectly realized work by a man of demonic wit and tender sensibility," Desson Howe wrote. "Almodovar has too keen and comprehensive a sense of the absurdity inherent in human behavior and life itself to allow (contrivance) to happen," observed Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times. "The film is actually amazingly cinematic considering that most of the action takes place in Pepa’s high-style apartment." David Denby: "The beauty shop atmosphere is offered not as a put down of vanity but as a celebration of vanity’s strength. ... Almodovar shows an affection ... that goes way beyond the ritual 'respect' given women in our own starchy post-feminist culture. He doesn’t take the proper 'line': he merely loves women."

-- Critic's Corner, Maura: "(She) has never looked so glamorous," Thomas declared. Rita Kempley: "a dark-eyed dish, a fiercely deadpan comedian with the gaunt good looks of a Jeanne Moreau." Canby praised Maura's "big, no-nonsense screen personality that perfectly fits Mr. Almodóvar's raffishly deadpan comic method." Denby again: "funny in an immediately sexual way that no American or English actress could approach."

-- Another interesting what could have been, verified by Googling: an American remake, to star Jane Fonda and Paula Prentiss in the Pepa and Lucía roles, under Richard Benjamin's direction. Let's see, this would be circa 1991. I imagine Matthew Broderick as the Carlos analogue, Armand Assante as Iván, Daryl Hannah as Candela, Illeana Douglas as Marisa, Estelle Getty as the concierge and Joan Cusack as Paulina.

-- "She committed a crime." "Her only crime was falling in love and being afraid. I'd do the same." "I'm sure."

-- Next: Another Woman. On deck: Beetlejuice.