High Heels

The first of Almodóvar’s films to focus on a mother-daughter relationship reads as a 1950’s Douglas Sirk melodrama with a bit of Rainer Fassbinder, Hollywood musicals, murder mystery amidst the street smarts and gender outsiders of the director’s earlier work.

This high-spirited sex comedy stars Marisa Paredes and Victoria Abril as an unconventional mother-daughter duo. Following the death of her husband, Becky Del Paramo (Paredes) moves to Madrid to become a film star, abandoning her daughter who herself becomes a television anchorwoman. When she returns 15 years later, Becky is surprised to discover that her daughter has married one of her former lovers, but has no qualms about rekindling the old flame.

Bilge Elbri of The Village Voice calls Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score “the noirest noir that ever noired” — it’s as sexy and stylish as the film’s flamboyant, high-fashion costuming.

“High Heels looks good and talks faster. The rapid-fire dialogue in this loquacious, lightly outrageous comic melodrama is a dizzying mixture of non sequitur and cliché.” (Village Voice)

“An intense, suffering Victoria Abril and a tough, self-dramatizing Marisa Paredes face off strongly as the daughter dressed by Chanel and the mother costumed by Armani. Even in her most flamboyant moments, however, Paredes pales beside Miguel Bose, whose Femme Lethal stands taller in heels than either of his female rivals.” (Hartford Courant)

Film website: www.sonypictures.com/movies/highheels

In Spanish with English subtitles