MovieChat Forums > Todo sobre mi madre (2000) Discussion > This sucks

This sucks

posted 20 years ago by jubinell
28 replies | jump to latest

This movie blows...Maybe cuz I saw Hable Con Ella and I thought that was quite something so I watched this movie with high anticipation. Turns out there's hardly any character development, the women's relationships are loosely supported, the whole noeud is based entirely on alligator's tears, no introduction into the central plot is supplied...Constantly throughout the movie I have to ask myself these questions: "Ok, so her son died in a car crash, so what???" "She got AIDS, so what??" "The husband turned into some freak, so what???" etc etc...the whole idea is that I never got introduced to these characters and their miserable lives in the first place so how am I supposed to sympathize for them?? Just as long as the director tells me that there loved ones died, that they got AIDS etc?? Come'on, you can do better than that...

If at all, this is like a beggar begging for money of you on the street...you're thinking: ok he looks poor and sad and all that, but if I don't know his miseries and his sadness, how can I feel for him?? Just because I see him in torn-to-shred clothes would that suffice in my giving him a buck or two??? Because there are millions of miserable people like him in all 4 corners of the earth who are complete strangers to me, am I supposed to sympathize for them all??

Another movie that I was immediately reminded of while watching this movie is "House of Sand and Fog." Same situation: a good plot, good noeud and denouement and all that, and plenty of tears to go around, but I feel helplessly isolated from these characters whom I am supposed to feel closeness with...What a shame.

Just for reference these are my all-time favorite movies: Irreversible, Good bye Lenin!, Lolita (both versions), Labyrinth, Leon, Lucia y el Sexo, Clerks, Bound, the Usual Suspects, se7en, and the Crow.

After all, this is just my critique of the film, so go easy with your counter-attack (no personal insults, please, be a good sport). I have only seen Hable Con Ella as this director's other work, and I find that treading on the same line as well. Luckily, there's just enough character development to get us acquainted, our shoes muddy and our cheeks wet.

Danorma
I'm devotion, not obsession.

[–] adolfoac-1 20 years ago

Wow! I have a totally different opinion. I sympathize with all the main characters: Manuela, Rosa, Agrado, Nina and Huma. This is one of my all-time favourite movies.

IMHO, your looking for causes instead of consequences.

[–] DrSgtPepper 20 years ago

This film is easy to feel, it may look complicated to the average viewer, but it's so basic in human emotion. If you're someone who lines up in record time for the latest Wil Smith flick or a 2 fast 2 furious kind of movie, then it's understandable.

[–] rivoluzione_di_verita 20 years ago

For the original poster, I felt there were sufficient scenes between all characters involved in order to establish an emotion connection; especially those between Manuela and Esteban. The actors conveyed brilliantly the closeness and affection that existed between mother and son, that you couldn't help but feel empathy for Manuela as her only son died.

Aside from that, I suppose you're just one of the human beings completely deviod of raw human emotion and empathy. Unlike you, when I see a "begger" or homeless person, I feel something- and more to the point, I try and do what I can for people less fortunate than I, but that's not the point. Your opinions or lack of emotion does not thereby invalidate those of another. More importanly the film effected you enough that you took the time out to post a retort, albeit negative, on IMDB.

--

To the poster DrSgtPepper: I hate when people try to cross reference mainstream movies with "art-house" type films. Just because someone may be eager to see a Will Smith movie does not necessarily mean that they are incapable of handling the more serious or artsy films. Any assumption of the kind denotes a rather pretentious and haughty attitude on your part. Art and Entertainment are both entirely subjective.

Let's keep the film elitist attitude in the film schools all over the world where it belongs.

[–] jubinell 20 years ago

hi,

thanks for your replies and niceness...except for that one dude who assumes that I watch Will Smith...i think I have better movies in my fav. lists...irreversibl e is a devastating attack on the gutter side of humanity, lolita is shocking, and lucia y el sexo is absolutely jaw-breaking....mas terpieces...oh yes,, good bye lenin! what an introduction to a new free world, with plenty of nostalgic reminiscents to the past, equally-beautiful, ideals. all of these movies are full of emotions, and are tear-producing as hell...but this movie is pretty fake.

To reassert my point, if i see a beggar on the street, i will NOT feel for him...cuz i don't know him...but i see your points: it's just how much tolerance we have for sympathy: for you guys you can easily feel touched by a sight, but not for me...because I understand there're millions of such sights around the world, and i can't feel for them all...therefore, I feel for the ones that I personally know.

cheers

Danorma
I'm devotion, not obsession.

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[–] DrSgtPepper 20 years ago

That's nice.

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[–] mcristina1410 20 years ago

luck is not necessary, it´s a wonderful movie, you will like it for sure:)

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[–] abc_and_d 19 years ago

I agree with you. I watched this movie with such high hopes and I was disappointed. I do not think you have to sypathize with the characters in any kind of movie so I thought that was not the problem. But when I read your post I realised that I was feeling the same as you were. I was too detached from all of them. There is no doubt that Almodovar is one of the best directors of our time so I think I will watch this film again to give myself another chance to like it. (I really loved Hable Con Ella, which I watched after All about my mother)

Oh and please do not say "This sucks". Although I agree with you and share your views, I still feel this film deserves better than such a simple, childish and superficial comment than "It Sucks" (and you seem to express yourself very well when it comes to explaining your views). I think you could find a better way to say that you do not like it.

[–] betsydamaris 19 years ago

Why do not watch a documentary, where the characers are real. That is precisely what a film should do, show us another perspective and make us look into things that are unusual. Almodovar does a great job at showing this in this film, that after all has the goal of looking at the reality of AIDS using a distinct approach.

[–] raydel_sanchez 19 years ago

I have watched Todo Sobre Mi Madre several times now and was able to establish a connection with Manuela from the very first moment. We get to see enough of her relationship with her son Esteban as to grasp the enormousness of her pain when she loses him...

Your lack of empathy and emotional numbness explains to a certain degree the callous indifference to the suffering of others that we see in today's society. I even feel for little birds that are missing a leg when they are fed by neighbors... I feel for the Brazilian young man who was taken for a terrorist and cruelly murdered by undercover London police agents... I feel for his family... and I have never even seen their faces... It's just about being human!

[–] soulrebel-2 19 years ago

I really liked this movie, though not as well as Habla Con Ella. This is a comedy, atleast I think it is, but either way I laughed the whole way through. True, there are dramatic elements, but largely I felt that the written drama was overshadowed by the physical comedy. IMO, the drama is overdone to that effect.
This isn't a matter of lacking empathy. Let's keep it in context that these are fictional characters depicted in a fictional story. Don't go confusing what is real with that which is not. Or in the least, don't confuse the way someone reacts to fiction with how that person may react to reality.
In my opinion, it's people seeing characters in a movie and feeling anything for them (out of the character's context) that I correlate to the indifference and callousness of people towards their own society. I hate to be so broad with this.

[–] Richard-Gagliano 19 years ago

because i feel such a strange, powerful connection to todo sobre mi madre, i couldn't help but feel offended reading your critique of it. I'm sorry that your opinion is totally, factually wrong. Todo Sobre mi madre is by far the best movie almodovar has ever made. Halble con ella was really good, but Celia Roth's superior acting tops anything in HCE. No character development? lies, just lies...

[–] dokken 19 years ago

It seemed like the indie version of a chick flick to me.

[–] delgadoj-1 19 years ago

Why? Could you be more specific?

[–] dokken 19 years ago

It seemed chick flicky because all the main characters were either women, or men that dressed and acted like women. They get together and deal with womanly issues that help them form a bond, like a chick flick, only because it's an indie flick, the issues are much more hardcore, like aids and death, instead of cheating husbands and other banal stuff that you might see in a holoywood chick-flick. I guess if it's between the holywood version of a chick flick and the indie version, I'll take the indie version, but I don't really like the genre at all. I find it uninteresting and difficult to relate to.

Check out this link for more on why this is an indie chick flick: http://www.epinions.com/content_6527291012

[–] Billy_Le_Kid 19 years ago

So let me get this straight…

Films with women as cenral characters in them, with a big 'Hollywood' budget are:
Chick-Flicks
and films without the Big Budget
are Inde-chick-flicks

Wow, your great insight makes the everything so clear… I don't want my freinds to think I'm gay so I certainly wont be watching any films with women in them…
gee, thanks.

[–] dokken 19 years ago

I don't know what the *beep* you think you're talking about. I didn't say anything about not watching films with women in them or worrying about your friends thinking you're gay. That's not part of my "insight" at all. I didn't say anything about a films budget either.

Piss off with your goddamn nonsense you *beep* loser.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] Kisalara 19 years ago

It seems to me that everyone is missing the point. Here we have characters whose sexuality and very identity are ambiguous. If Lola played Stanley Kowalski to Manuela's Stella in "Streetcar," he must have been quite macho at that time. Now he's a transsexual who still makes love to women—one of them a nun—as a man. As an actress and in her private life Huma models herself on Bette Davis. Agrado is a convincing transsexual prostitute who takes pride in being "authentic." A woman is most authentic, she says, when she most closely resembles her vision of herself. Manuela, who identifies with the role of Stella, empathizes with them all, in whatever guise. The only unsympathetic character is Nina, who can't seem to fashion a stable vision of herself: lesbian or wife? Lola and Rosa, too, are ambivalent about their roles, but they pay the ultimate price for their ambivalence. Isn't Almodóvar saying that we all play roles, and the roles become the persons we are? I, too, love this picture.

[–] patrick_dunne 19 years ago

Please DON'T make boards saying things such as "This movie is overrated" or "This movie sucks."