Stars: Penelope Cruz, Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Pena, Rosa Maria Sarda, Antonia San Juan, Eloy Azorin, Toni Canto

Director: Pedro Almodovar

Summary: Cecilia Roth stars in this celebrated film from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. Distraught over the death of her teenage son, Manuela drives to Barcelona to find the boy's father, an itinerant transsexual named Lola (Toni Canto). While combing the city's less reputable districts, she also meets up with Agrado (Antonia San Juan), a sassy transvestite prostitute, and Rosa (Penelope Cruz), a pregnant nun on her way to El Salvador. She also becomes the manager for Huma (Marisa Paredes), the actress her son idolized, and helps her through a run of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Together these great ladies bond through various heartrending crises, enduring the pain and celebrating the beauty of being women (or almost women). Considered to be one of Almodovar's most fully realized works, this charming and unique film blends his earlier gender-bending irreverence with the mature grace and compassion of his later work, striking a perfect note of humor and pathos.

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After her son is killed in an accident, Manuela (Cecilia Roth) leaves Madrid for her old haunts in Barcelona. She reconnects with an old friend, a pre-op transsexual prostitute named La Agrado (Antonia San Juan), who introduces her to Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a young nun who turns out to be pregnant. Meanwhile, Manuela becomes a personal assistant for Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), an actress currently playing Blanche DuBois in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire. All About My Mothertraces the delicate web of friendship and loss that binds these women together. The movie is dedicated to the actresses of the world, so it's not surprising that all the performances are superb. Roth in particular anchors All About My Motherwith compassion and generosity. But fans of writer-director Pedro Almodóvar needn't fret--as always, Almodóvar's work undermines conventional notions of sexual identity and embraces all human possibilities with bright colours and melodramatic plotting. However,All About My Motherapproaches its twists and turns with a broader emotional scope than most of Almodóvar's work; even the more extravagant aspects of the story are presented quietly, to allow the sadness of life to be as present as the irrepressible vitality of the characters. Almodóvar embraces pettiness, jealousy and grief as much as kindness, courage and outrageousness, and the movie is the richer for it. --Bret Fetzer

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	Spanish
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:	English
Year:	1999
Release Date:	February 28, 2000
Runtime:	97 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P 8995 D V D
Keywords:	About, Mother, Subtitled, General, Wide, Screen, Spanish, Madre, All, My, Drama, Mi, Sobre, Todo
Genre:	Drama