Talk to Her (2002) User Reviews

Very beautiful and compelling, but perhaps not for every one.

[philip_vanderveken · 9/10 · 3 December 2004]

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I watched 'Hable Con Ella'. All I knew was that it was directed by Pedro Almodovar, who is considered as one of the biggest talents outside of Hollywood. Well, he certainly has some talent. A talent to make movies that are not always easy to watch, but certainly thought provoking, beautiful, compelling and stylish.

'Hable Con Ella' tells the story of two men who are in love with a woman in a coma and how they both handle this in a different way. They meet each other in the hospital with a beautiful friendship between the two men as a result.

Pedro Almodovar is some kind of artist who likes to paint with words and images. As a result you get a beautiful tale about obsession, love, friendship and desperation, which may not be to everybody's taste because of the bizarre subject, but which certainly touched me. It's very original and I would recommend it to everybody who isn't afraid to watch a movie with a special subject. I give it a 9/10

Talk to Her spoke to me..

[StephanieBowman · 9/10 · 12 May 2010]

The camaraderie of two men caring for women they love in comas is the center of Almodóvar's stunningly poignant film, Talk to Her. After recently viewing Almodóvar's stupendous film All about my Mother, I was anxious to see his subsequent work. While the films stories are unrelated the curtains that fall in the end of All about my Mother are present in the opening scene of Talk to Her; something audiences may not pay mind to if not watching in sequence. The film is filled with art; ballet is woven throughout and in the opening and ending scene. The Mise-en-scène is breathtaking, from intricate matador costumes, to the vivid colors, and a haunting somber score. Reminiscent of Almodóvar style the film ranges from a soap opera to immense tragedy. There is the highly melodramatic scene in which the women matador character fights with a talk show host, yet overall the film has a solemn premise. We see surrealism in a silent film within the film's peculiar sexual symbolism later ensuing in rape. The film captures Spain's time honored masculine Bullfight, yet there is a woman matador; stretching the mind's eye in regard to gender roles; aptly Almodóvar's grand craft. Almodóvar is also known for female cast compilations, yet the director changes course with the two men who share loneliness and pain provoked by passion. We see attributes in the male characters generally deemed feminine, namely: embroidery, crying, nurturing devoting. The bond that in the end unites the two men is that they share these abilities. There are numerous flashbacks which show how the men meet their now comatose women and the evolution of the relationships. The title of the film, Talk to Her reflects a literal meaning as well as broader premise of communication in relationships. "Nothing is simple" says the ballet instructor in the last line of the film, a comment on the complicated emotional paradigm of the story. Almodóvar's script is original and captivating, great acting with daring direction, the viewer is indubitably moved.

A powerful piece of work

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 8/10 · 16 November 2008]

In spite of being driven to the top rank of art cinema directors with his critically acclaimed sensation "About My Mother," and being unlike other directors of equivalent status who have been chosen to work within the rootless world of the international co-productions, Almodóvar has remained instilled in the rich culture of his native Spain…

In "Talk to Her" the two main protagonists are men, unusually for Almodóvar, whose films have been notable for a succession of powerful and striking female roles… Benigno is a male nurse who is employed to care for a dancer (Alicia) in a coma after a car accident… At the private clinic he meets Marco, a journalist who is in love with Lydia, a female bullfighter also in a coma after being gored by a bull… They become friends and Benigno persuades Marco that he must talk to Lydia, even if she cannot hear (therefore the title). But then we lean that the likable and amiable Benigno has raped Alicia, the woman who is in love with her…

European art cinema has a great tradition but an uncertain future in the world increasingly dominated by Hollywood… Almodóvar is an ornament of European culture which proved that the form still has much to say about the human condition and can say it with charm, elegance, and attractiveness

A fine, disturbing work of art about selfish "love."

[nlloyd50 · 18 September 2003]

I had a hard time getting around this movie right after seeing it. Something was not quite right, something disturbing. But after sleeping on it I think I have it figured out.

I know people read these to find out if a movie is good or not. It is good. It's an effective piece of art which has an interesting and original inner voice. It's thought-provoking.

But it doesn't leave you with anything to hang your hat on. You are not going to come out relating to the characters or situations. Not right away, not until you've digested the whole and figured out what part of it is universal to you.

*spoilers galore*

The key to Marco & Benigno's relationship is that they both don't listen to women - the title of the film can throw you off this trail a bit. They don't listen - and they don't want to.

Marco didn't want to know that this woman wasn't really in love with him. After all, he swept in when she was on the rebound and he "knows desperate women" by his own admission - or does he not really know them, rather, always swoops in like this? That would explain a lot - he has a hard time with normal relationships. He likes a girl on the rebound, or desperate for some reason. He doesn't really want to cope with real love, he just want s his own thing. -

He is selfish. This is not the way one loves. Love is something that is not for you, it is for the one you love.

Does he then gain anything from his friend's problems & suicide? I don't know. But I think in the end that he doesn't. Maybe this is why it is a disturbing film. He is back to crying at this experimental dance. He has already gone back to traveling around on his own instead of leading a life with people. He is back to getting involved with a girl who has problems (girl coming out of a coma counts, I'd say).

Meanwhile, his friend Benigno is the ultimate in "doesn't listen." He idolized this girl from afar, then found the perfect relationship when she couldn't communicate at all. But she was (communicating) - she was saying *nothing* at all, and he was projecting for her. He knew that, in fact, but that didn't matter to him.

Finally, he rapes her under the pretense that she has actually been communicating with him, in the way he wants. Rape is, of course, the ultimate in selfish love. It is an act which defines how "selfish love" is really an oxymoron - it's not love at all. He feels his half of the relationship is enough to make a whole. This is the ultimate loner, I'd say. And we know he never learns, never grows, nothing. He ends up committing suicide. The ultimate in despair.

One might say that Benigno was "good" b/c he had cared for this girl all this time. But that is not what "good" is. He is not caring for her out of dedication to his profession. He is not caring for her out of love. He is doing it b/c he needs it for his own selfish purposes - that is how he feels love. I suppose b/c that is what he had with his mother.

So there is a reason, seemingly - his mother. That would be too easy, though, to just let him slide b/c of that. And to do so, one would have to project something not in the film - we never actually know what the relationship was with this mother.

So then, it's not black & white, but still definite, I think, all reasons aside, in that he is not "good." In fact, I think he has severe problems.

And Marco relates to him...

Perhaps it's hopeful in that ultimately it lays the blame on the characters themselves and doesn't say this is some bigger, unresolveable problem. But from what I saw, it's still pretty depressing.

Perhaps Almodovar's greatest work

[radonner · 10/10 · 27 December 2004]

There are many who say that "Todo Sobre Mi Madre" is his best film, but now that I've seen both these movies, I give the nod - by a long way - to "Hable con Ella". This is a masterpiece, and not just because of the poignancy of the characters, or the story in general, or the way the scenes are shot - watching the matador get dressed was quite engrossing - but EVERYTHING comes together so wonderfully. The brilliance of Spanish-language films never fails to amaze me, and this is another one in that long line of greatness. There will be times where the viewer may feel somewhat uncomfortable with the characters and their actions, but that does not stop Almodovar from exploring such emotions; indeed, one sometimes gets the impression that Almodovar's entire purpose is to make you analyze your own feelings - and simply does it better than anyone else. Recommended for anyone who can read subtitles.

Talk to Her-Almodovar goes left field-with tragedy and emotion in brilliant fashion!!

[MulhollandRob · 10/10 · 3 February 2003]

Rating **** out of ****

Spanish Writer-Director Pedro Almodovar is a filmmaker that always captures strange, and honest moments within his characters emotions-especially women. Such films as "All About My Mother", and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" support this, but in Almodovar's latest film "Talk To Her"--he does something a little different by making men the protagasnits. It's brilliant, unique, and creative filmmaking at its best. However beneath all the brilliance is a lovely, sweet film that is charming in its own little way.

Almodovar crafts "Talk to Her" with a style that is unique in color and tone, and it has behavioral exposition that is far more mature and tonally sustained than anything he's done before. But the plot is insane as anything that Almodovar's has done before, which makes the movie more of a career-peak change, its a masterpiece constructed on the solid foundation of everything he's previously tried and learned. The movie's great, bad-boy conceit is that its two heroes, wounded-in-love journalist Marco (Dario Grandinetti) and naive nurse Benigno (Javier Camara), are hopelessly in love with women they can't communicate with -- and that really gives the two guys something to talk about, as well as a base for the strongest of friendships. Not that their women are intentionally unreachable; both, you see, are in comas.

By the end of this crazy, heart-thrilling tale, Almodovar has delivered us through un unexpecting film of humor, human emotions, specific human connections, remorse, and philosophies. "Talk to Her" is more than just a run of a talked about foreign film, and having Oscar-Nomination potential-it is one of the best movies of 2002.

Stunning, both visually and semantically

[Patrick_Allan · 9/10 · 30 December 2003]

On watching "Talk To Her", one of the first things you will notice is the beauty of film-work involved. The colours are rich and saturated, the image is crisp and the camera work is superb. Smooth panning shots and steady zooms guide you safely though s slightly fractured narrative, cutting between the past, present and future on occasions.

This discontinuity, however, isn't confusing to the viewer and is, in fact, far from it. The cast act and speak so clearly that it is a perfect introduction to anyone new to foreign language film and, aside from the minor plot-line of bullfighting, there aren't an abundance of Spanish cultural references.

This film, essentially, is a complex story laid out in an extremely simple form. It is not a film you will forget and, no doubt, will think about a lot after watching it. Also, unlike a lot of critically acclaimed films, you will not be cogitating over the events that took place in the film, you will be asking yourself how they apply to your life and relationships with others. Despite "Talk To Her"'s tragic story, it is an incredibly fun film to watch and discuss with others and a film I am extremely glad I added to my collection, having heard little about it at the time I bought it. 9/10

Why don't we make films like this?

[burgovision · 10/10 · 31 January 2004]

Have you ever noticed that only european cinema, especially french & spanish, seem able to produce this kind of black whimsical film which engages you intellectually and leaves you awakened, intrigued and excited?

Offbeat and sensitive melodrama about two men care for women in coma masterfully acted and directed

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 14 November 2015]

Good film including interesting drama , colorful cinematography , sensitive score and nice interpretations by all-Spanish-star-cast . Almodovar successful melodrama about two comatose women and the men who love them , including his ordinary rare characters , twisted situations and eccentric events . Two men Benigno (Javier Camera ,this role is based on Pedro Almodóvar's close friend Roberto Benigni) , and Marco (Dario Grandinetti) share an odd friendship while they care for two women , Alicia (Leonor Watling) and Lydia (Rosario Flores) in very different ways , who are both in deep comas .

Agreeable film full of feeling , outlandish characters full of desire and love , haunting mood-pieces , unforgettable as well as outrageous images , and sense of style . The picture deals with off-the-wall/intense drama , loneliness familiar absurdities , superb scenes , a haunting meditation on love with dysfunctional roles and many other things . Here deals with existences of the four peculiar roles : a nurse , a ballerina , a writer , and a bullfighter , whose fates will flow in all directions, past , present and future , dragging all of them towards an unsuspected finale . A silent segment , played by Paz Vega and Fele Martinez , is awesome with shocking as well as funny images . This strange as well as excessive melodrama could only have been made by Almodovar . The picture is pretty well and turns out to be superior to Almodovar's previous entries such as or ¨Live flesh¨ , ¨The flower of my secret¨ , ¨Kika¨ , ¨High heels¨ , ¨Atame¨ and ¨Entre Tinieblas¨, all of them strong and outlandish dramas . The result is undiluted scabrous flick , plenty of crazy strings of plots and sharp images with enjoyable situations . I liked everyone in the excellent cast, and the male and female actors , especially Leonor Watling , were all very attractive . Furthermore , a notorious support cast such as Lola Dueñas , Roberto Álvarez , Elena Anaya , Chus Lampreave , Adolfo Fernández , Ana Fernández , Jose Sancho , Carmen Machi , Loles León , Fele Martínez and other delightfully played roles . In addition , spectacular dancing carried out by Pina Bausch and her professional dancer group . And a lot of cameos : Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes: frequent Pedro Almodóvar actors appear briefly when Caetano Veloso is singing . As usual in most of Pedro Almodóvar's movies, there is a small role for Agustín Almodóvar, his brother and producer of the film, who plays the priest conducting the wedding is the producer of the film . Rousing musical score by Alberto Iglesias , Almodovar's ordinary ; including some marvelous songs . Colorful and luxurious cinematography in Panavision , beautifully photographed by Javier Aguirresarove .

This one-of-a-kind picture was realized in his peculiar style by Pedro Almodovar ; he often uses symbolism and metaphorical techniques to portray circular story lines though here he directs a special melodrama , including his ordinary touches . He won an Academy Award for Best Original screen-play and it was chosen by "Les Cahiers du cinéma" as one of the 10 best pictures of 2002 . Almodovar directs throughout with splendid zip and he usually portrays strong female characters and transsexuals and along his career getting some important international prizes . His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release . In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company : El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world , making his films very popular in many countries . Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar who made successes such as Labyrinth of passions , Law of desire , Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown , Bad education , All about my mother , Broken embraces , The Skin I Live In , Volver and many others . The latest from acclaimed Spanish director , Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited (Los Amantes Pasajeros) competing for the inaugural best European comedy honor during the upcoming 26th edition of the European Film Awards

Almodovar at his Most Serious.

[nycritic · 10/10 · 5 November 2005]

There is an interesting feel in Pedro Almodovar's HABLE CON ELLA. The film starts and finishes in a theatre, and two characters who eventually meet and create a bond are sitting in close proximity of each other, moved by the drama playing itself on-stage. Javier Camera and Dario Grandinetti play Benigno and Marco. As TALK TO HER begins, they are both watching a play about two women, both mimicking each other's actions, both looking disheveled and with white night gowns. What neither of them know is that they will meet through the most unlikely of ways.

Javier is a loner, a man who lost his mother and has an ambiguous sexuality, who works as a nurse in a hospital. He spies at Alicia, a young dancer (played by Leonor Watling), and we see his desire. He bumps into her on the street, walks her home, and notices her father is a psychiatrist who consults from home. So he sets a session in which he sort of declares he is a homosexual, while Alicia takes a shower. Before he leaves he takes an object from her room, not before he bumps into a naked Alicia and makes up a flimsy excuse as to why he is there. However, he will lose her to an accident which will leave her in a coma.

Marco is a reporter assigned to interview the famous bullfighter Lydia (Rosario Flores) right at the moment she is going through some tough moments since her ex-boyfriend, another toreador called "El Nino de Valencia" (Adolfo Fernandez) has left her the object of media fodder. They become close, but a fateful match with a bull leaves Lydia also in a coma, hovering between life and death in the hospital where Benigno works and takes care of the also comatose Alicia. Marco, while taking care of Lydia, wonders if his interview could have broken her concentration and led to her situation.

It's here when Benigno and Marco meet, and their meeting becomes the fulcrum of HABLE CON ELLA. Benigno opens Marco to the idea that love needs not have a response to be true -- he confides his love for Alicia -- and one sequence is truly disturbing: Benigno's fantasy sequence in which a shrinking man penetrates his wife's vagina, shown in black and white, betrays what can amount to a pathology, and its eventual denouement, something I won't reveal, creates a series of events that accelerate both the moral of the story. Love sometimes can create actions we would deem as monstrous, even when we may not see them as such. Almodovar handles his risky material with incredible taste -- it is rare to see this kind of subject matter on screen -- but Almmodovar makes it seem natural even when at its core, such love can be frightening.

If this is love, I know love not

[magic_marker · 7/10 · 1 September 2002]

Pedro Almodovar's "Talk to Her" is as suprisingly sweet as it is profoundly disturbing. It is an examination of the nature of love that attempts to challenge our idea of what love is by taking it to its very limits. The lead character is a typical sad sack; slightly disturbed, isolated and sexually inexperienced. He spends his days staring out of his window at a rapturously beautiful dancer, and tries to form a relationship with her by becoming a patient at her father's psychiatric practice. This eventually leads to disaster when he sneaks into her room to steal an item of hers and finds her just coming out of the shower. But the guy perseveres. After spending years looking after his mother (Who wasn't an invalid, she just didn't like moving very much) he gains a degree in nursing and works with camatose patients. To his joy, one of the camatose patients turns out to be the dancer, and so now he can spend all day expressing and demonstrating his love for her. At least, you could see it that way. Or you could see it as an innocent and helpless girl delivered into the hands of a sexual deviant stalker who now can manhandle her and fantacise about her in any way he pleases. I think you can guess by now where the film is heading, and when the ultimate act is committed, Almodovar presents it in such a way as to show the audience how it could be interpreted as an act of love and selflessness. We never see the act itself, only the man's interpretation of it, and the sequence is, suprisingly, quite funny and, in strange way, touching. But that does not alter the fact that Almodovar is attempting to make rape emotionally acceptable. The film makes this particularly clear by its ending, which, if you have been following this review, I am sure you could also guess. Call me a prude, but I have always felt that love that is only felt by one person is not truly love. True love is something that built by two people by constant attention and care. If I tell someone, "I love you" and she cannot say "I love you too," then I am only really in love with an illusion, not a person.

a masterpiece

[lonepal · 10/10 · 20 December 2004]

There are few filmmakers who can tell such a beautiful and sad story as Almodovar does here. And only he can create such a surreal world that pulls us in and shows us the beauty and subjectiveness of love. He has proved just how much a master he has become in the total craft of film-making.

The writer has created characters that touch us and seem immensely rich although we see and hear so little; and the director has managed, through the use of color, production design and lighting, to craft their world in such a way as we see what they see and therefore through their relationships, see who they are.

The sensual nature of the film and Almodovar's ability to play with the beauty of the body and the strange intimacy of the characters work to perfection. This will be considered one of the great films of this era.

Well made world cinema - but the "8.2" IMDB rating is not justified!

[Pedro_H · 6/10 · 3 March 2004]

The story of two men in love with women that are in comas and how they deal with their personal tragedies.

Pedro Almodovar makes interesting films that are different but not so very different that they alienate the (world) cinema audience. Through video, DVD, cable, satellite, etc., what is the mainstream and what is art-house is becoming blurred. Naturally this is a good thing.

Returning to the subject in hand, I have to commend the director for his control and timing. The Madrid-based film maker is still learning and, this is his most mature visual piece. Sadly he still writes the scripts and his vision of taste doesn't have a natural censor - the word that Spaniards seem to hate more than any other.

Coma patients are interestingly in they are in a state of neither being dead or alive. Although here there is "no hope" of a return to the living. Whether they can hear what is going on or understand anything is an open question. This film takes no stance other than the obvious "they might so why not give it a go." Hence the title.

This is not a subject that I particularly want to see jokes being made about and the sense of voyeurism is not really praiseworthy either. The male nurse is controlled and dedicated (or so it seems!) and seen going about his everyday duties, but also childlike and (so he says in the film proper) a virgin.

There is an atmosphere here, but too little solid information for my liking. I didn't learn enough about the primary male subjects to draw any firm conclusions and the primary females are reduced to puppets for the bulk of the film.

The inclusion of dance numbers and a bizarre TV interviewer didn't take me anywhere or add anything to my understanding. The black and white sexy skit is strange and looks out of place - like Almodovar is trying to spice up the soup.

Clearly many are getting drawn inside his work and the praise of so many critics (paid or otherwise) is notable, but I notice they all see something different which suggests that they are just using the movie to get across their own agendas. As you can do with fey movies like this that take chances and push the envelope.

Visually appealing, morally appalling!

[ellaquince · 2/10 · 25 November 2006]

I just watched this movie on my hotel TV in the middle of the Australian outback while on vacation. It completely drew me in, even when I had the TV on mute. I watched the entire movie without really feeling anything but I was entranced and intrigued by the visuals and the plot line and the backgrounds of the characters ...

**SPOILER** So I would normally give it 6 out of 10, but then I learned that animals were actually truly harmed in the making of this film -- not something you hear about anymore, I think. (I wasn't too impressed either by the response of the production company when the film was protested: "we had permission to kill the bulls" and "the activists are just trying to get attention". Are we three-year-olds?) **SPOILER** The story was told so delicately in the film that I was surprised that Benigno's character actually was guilty of rape. I watched the whole conclusion of the film waiting to find out he was innocent and by the end I still wasn't convinced; it was only when I read the reviews that I realized that that really was the plot. The writing of this behavior for this character just didn't fit for me. It was completely not believable.

**SPOILER** Those things bothered me a little but it was tolerable. I was ready to go to sleep when I read some other reviewers rationalizing the rape of Alicia: it was in the name of love; he really loved her; he believed she loved him back; she was there naked in front of him everyday.

**SPOILER** Alicia was comatose. She could not speak or move. She had no voice, no say, in what she was experiencing. She couldn't tell Benigno if his breath smelled or if she liked his cologne; she couldn't tell him if she enjoyed his stories or if she found him self-obsessed and rambling; she couldn't tell him "I'm in love with you" or "I'm not ready to make love to you" or "Please put some clothes on me, you pervert!" As another reader said, one-sided love is not love. Benigno's love affair was a delusion that was fueled by the circumstance of coma, but that's no excuse for his behavior.

I want to make sure that its romance is removed for everyone reading this review: **SPOILER MAJOR SPOILERS** Imagine that you are a woman waking up from a coma. You are told that a year of your life has passed. That you were in a car accident and have very little chance of dancing again, something that was your life's passion. You have been caressed and fondled and had your body trespassed upon in innumerable ways, without your knowledge or permission, in the name of good medical care. You have been pregnant, in fact you have given birth, by a man who you did not love, someone who revolted and frightened you. This stuff is not romantic, it's rape.

So, now then, I'm going to submit this for review. Good night folks. I wish you all some wonderful movie-viewing in your future, and hopefully no more movies that paint rape in beautiful colors.

Cinema heaven

[Rave-Reviewer · 6 July 2004]

Benigno and Marco are both lonely men, Marco because his lover, a woman bullfighter, is in a coma, Benigno, a thirty-year old virgin Momma's boy, from habit. Both are in love, too (Benigno, a male nurse at the clinic, slavishly tends Alicia, a comatose accident victim, for a living). It is he who gives Marco, with whom he strikes up a friendship, the eponymous advice: talk, and your heartfelt monologue will be more meaningful and therapeutic than any marital dialogue.

Seeing Almodóvar's latest film was one of the most pleasurable cinema experiences I have had for some time. He has over the years amassed the technical skill and maturity to put across quite complex stories in a deceptively simple language. From the shock tactics and punk aesthetics of Pepi, Luci, Bom, y otras chicas del montón (1980), to the Oscar-winning melodrama of All About My Mother (1999), he had already come a long way. Here, finally, was an interweaving of the lives of disparate characters that was not only unabashed in its excess (it always had been), it actually made you care – deeply.

More bullfighting

At first sight Hable con ella looks like being another case study in that famously offbeat, not to say queer, book of life according to Pedro. Almodóvar's scenarios have been no strangers to sex, drugs, and heartrending canción (a particular brand of overwrought singing which knows no real Anglo-Saxon equivalent). In Hable con ella we have bullfighting, a theme he used as an excuse for kinky sex in Matador, given a contemporary treatment in the person of 'torera', Lydia (female bullfighters are indeed beginning to compete in a man's profession). Here too we have the apparently off-the-wall and by now notorious scene from the film-within-the-film, El Amante Minguante, in which a shrunken hero takes refuge in his lover's vagina for protection. But neither is gratuitous gesture: Lydia is designed to counterpoint Marco's almost feminine sensitivity, and the latter sequence, far from being there to shock, is a metaphor to spare us a far more harrowing, and morally problematic, plot truth. The ability to turn kitsch into art is increasingly one of Almodóvar's defining features.

Post-modern?

While he often refers to other artforms in his films (reality TV in Kika, Ruth Rendell in Live Flesh, canción in High Heels), since All About My Mother the technique has become more assured. Where that film was a paean to female suffering, via All About Eve and A Streetcar Named Desire, in Hable con ella we have two men sharing a tear over a performance by the dancer Pina Bausch. Other references are the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso, who sings at a party attended by (uncredited) Cecilia Roth and Marisa Paredes (from Mother), and Michael Cunningham, whose novel The Hours similarly has a tripartite structure where each section deepens and sheds light on the others ('tunnels in caves'). In other words the post-modernist borrowing is rendered invisible by being absorbed into the drama: it is not post-modern any more.

Almodóvar's choice to make a film about the loneliness and longing of men is a courageous one for a very private celebrity, a gamble to follow what might have been the peak of his career, and one which whets our appetite for what is to come.

When silence become eloquence and words medicines...

[auberus · 8/10 · 9 July 2004]

'Hable con ella' aka 'Talk to Her' (2002) is a powerful cinematic experience…It is not the best Almodovar and the narration is not a pristine one as more affective details could have been added. Yet the movie succeeds on so many levels. Why is that so? An original scenario and a bunch of very good actors might very well be the answer. Very baroque at time, adept of kitsch atmospheres Mr. Almodovar also has a cinematic sense of parody as well as drama. His style became famous out of Spain with movie like 'Women on the verge of a Nervous Breakdown' (1988), High Heels (1991) and Kika (1993). 'Talk to her' is no exception. It is baroque in the topic, kitsch in the atmosphere and dramatic in the output. The movie not only talks about friendship between two men but also about loneliness and wounds provoked by passion. It demonstrates how monologue can become dialogue and how silence is in fact 'eloquence of the body'. In between those silences, Benigno Martin (Javier Camera) and soon Marco Zuluaga (Dario Grandinetti) use words as weapons: weapons against Solitude first, against Death and against Madness…Yes Madness is another theme in this movie but not the 'dark madness', not the 'killing madness', but the type that is so close to tenderness and common sense that it becomes almost normality and that's exactly where Mr. Almodovar succeeds.

About men

[rbverhoef · 9/10 · 16 March 2003]

This is a film about men and their emotions. One man has a relationship with a woman, the most famous female matador in Spain. He cries over the most strange things. The female matador gets in a coma. The other man is in love with a woman, he has only spoken to her once. The man is a male nurse and when the woman gets in a coma he is the one to take care of her. Some people around him thinks he is gay so he is allowed to take care of her, see her naked, touch her. The two men get to know each other while waiting at the beds of their loved ones.

I will not reveal what happens with the two women, or with the men. The way the subject is handled is great. In one way we see the two man devoting their lives two women. In another way we see the creepy part of that. For example we know the male nurse is in love with the one he is taking care of, and as I said, he sees naked every day. The woman seems to be an obsession, the man seems to be obsessed. We have sympathy for the men anyway.

The acting is good, a very intelligent story and a great direction makes this film one of the year's best. In the end you will have a strange feeling, and a good feeling as well.

Almodovar's GREAT masterpiece

[gue_gg_ila · 10/10 · 18 November 2004]

I mean I have never seen a movie with such a subject...it is about love but in a very, very strange way, let's say that it is a story about love in a very honest way but in a "weird", but also pure situation!

SPOILERS*****

Seriously this is a movie about honesty, confidence and love. A man is just in love(he IS NOT obsessed) with a woman that is in a coma, he meets another man that had a girlfriend who is also in a coma and teaches him about how to treat people in an indirect way...

This man in love with a practically dead woman is called Benigno and his loves goes to the top he is constantly talking to her, arranging her, he is her nurse and he also cleans her during all those years she was "dead". But one night his love goes too far, 1.He wants to marry the woman(Alicia) 2.He actually leaves her pregnant while being half dead.

The situation causes commotion, Beningno is looked at like a Perve and in some way he just didn't really see the world's REALITY of the situation but,on the other hand, he sees his own truth which is that he was just in love with her and had no intentions of harming her. Love goes beyond the usual, REAL love always does, because love and madness are two feelings that always go together.

As the movie ends you see Benigno in prison hurted for what he has done to Alicia, worried about his child and worried about any harm he could have done to her either she woke up or not. At the end we discover Alicia alive again, walking, not able to dance ballet like she used to before the coma but enchanting as always and you are able to realize everything beautiful Benigno ever saw in her.

I won't tell the whole story there is much more going on in the film...but it is marvelous!

10/10...You have never and you are not very likely to ever see a film like THIS ONE!

Talk to Her

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 7 June 2019]

This film from director Pedro Almodóvar is centred on two men; Benigno Martín and Marco Zuluaga. They first meet when they are seated next to each other in a theatre; they don't exchange a word but Benigno notices Marco's emotional reaction to the piece. We then see how Benigno works at a clinic where he cares for Alicia, a ballerina, who has been in a coma for four years. Meanwhile Marco, a journalist, is trying to secure an interview with Lydia, a matador. They become friends but then she is gored in the bullring and ends up in a coma; Marco is told there is almost no chance that she will ever recover. As he visits her he meets Benigno in the clinic. He encourages Marco to talk to Lydia but he doesn't see the point. In the events that follow we discover secrets and events take a sinister turn as we learn more about one of the men.

As one would expect from Almodóvar this film is more about characters than events. The events we do see are there to advance character development and bring the two men together. The two main characters are interesting with Javier Cámara and Darío Grandinetti impressing as Benigno and Marco respectively. Over the course of the film the characters develop in ways one might not expect as we see what a first appears to be tender love is really dangerous obsession. This is all the more disturbing as we are initially encouraged to like the character. The film is shot in a naturalistic way that suits the material. It must be admitted that there is material in the film that will bother some viewers; most notably scenes of bullfighting and a film within the film that includes a scene of a 'miniature man' climbing over then entering a woman's naked body. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of Almodóvar's other films but it certainly won't be for everybody.

These comments are based on watching in Spanish with English subtitles.

Another World

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 19 January 2015]

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

Pedro Almodovar has consistently made good films. This may not be his very best, or perhaps not even his second best, but with all his films being top-notch it still remains worth seeing.

Where else can you see a film with the emotion of hope in the face of a woman with PVS? Americans today (2015) still remember Terri Schiavo and the torment it takes for a family to wait or pull the plug.

As a bonus, we also get some very inventive silent film-style intertitles.

Big boys don't cry..

[jotix100 · 9/10 · 9 December 2002]

Pedro Almodovar's latest film is a welcome change of pace. Instead of making a woman's picture, this is a film that sees the action through the eyes of grown up men.

Benigno is a misfit. How can any hospital employs him to attend a coma patient, is beyond understanding. More so, when the patient is the beautiful and well endowed Alicia? Didn't anyone in management see that they were only courting trouble by letting him be in that ward.?

Marco, on the other hand, is always crying. Any little thing sets him off. His relationship with Lydia, the lady bullfighter, is interrupted by the accident she suffers and that brings him and Benigno to the same hospital at the same time.

Benigno is the one that brings the story to a happy conclusion by leaving in a tragic manner. That means no more tears for Marco, only happiness after having suffered so much throughout the film.

The acting is very good. Javier Camara is incredible as Benigno. He has a deadpan face and he says the most incredible things with a straight face. Dario Grandinetti is also very effective as Marco although the crying at times get to be too much because it happens without reason apparent.

Leonor Watling doesn't have much to say since she's in a coma most of the time. Rosario Flores makes a better impression as the bullfighter. She has a very expressive face.

The film has an interesting look that's very easy to take and enjoy. This is a surprise as Mr. Almodovar chills out after his recent films.

Talk to Her

[henry8-3 · 7/10 · 30 March 2021]

2 lonely men become close friends when they meet whilst each nurses a comatose women

This rather profound drama takes you in quite a few different and unexpected directions looking at love, sexuality, obsession and loneliness. The lighter moments are few and far between, but the acting and the characters created by Almodovar are exceptional and the whole thing is actually rather moving.

A love gone astray

[markmuhl · 8/10 · 19 July 2021]

Would you believe that a story about the sexual abuse of a coma patient can still be a love story? No? Well, then follow the story of hospital nurse Benigno, who by chance becomes the caregiver of the girl he has been secretly in love with.

Pedro Almodovar succeeds in telling an odd and unusual love story in a sensitive manner without forgetting the fact that a one-sided love can easily become a dangerous and mind-boggling obsession.

While I kind of disliked the movie when watching it for the first time about 20 years ago, I really appreciated it this time. Probably, it requires a certain maturity and the liking of unusual, not straight forward stories (which I have built up over the years).

Also, worth mentioning:

* Almodovar can't hide one more time his affection for bull fighting.

* There is a short but elaborate 'movie in the movie', and this comes like this: one of the few things that Benigno knows about his patient, is, that she had a certain passion for silent movies in black and white. That is why Benigno sometimes goes watching such films in the movie theatre and we get to see one of those, which turns out to be very much a metaphor for Benigno's personal situation.

* In one of the early scenes Brazilian songwriter Gaetano Veloso is singing his version of the song Cucurrucucú paloma, yet another song about unfulfilled love. Beautiful music and atmosphere, which should not be missed.

Overall an intelligent and interesting movie that probably makes one feel a bit uncomfortable at certain points but it is definitely worth its time.

An evocative, lush masterpiece!

[sabahataijaz · 7/10 · 11 May 2005]

Internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, known for his daring forays into the weird and unexpected, is back with the aptly titled 'Talk To Her,' arguably his most accomplished feature.

Most beguiling amalgamation of Almodovar's pet themes, this is about two men, about the loneliness and long convalescence of the wounds provoked by passion. The film carries the offbeat tone of his earlier work, while channelling the richness and textures of modern Spain.

Easily categorized as a drama, Almodovar plays with structures with elements of flashbacks and ambiguous story lines about the film's central characters.

The film begins with two men, who don't know each other, sitting next to each other, watching a ballet. Both are moved by the story and movement. One of them is Benigno (Javier Camera), a nurse, who is taking care of a beautiful, young ballet dancer, Alicia (Leonor Watling). Alicia has now been in a coma for four years. Benigno is in love with her and talks to her about the ballet, while massaging and washing her body.

The other man is an Argentinean travel writer, Marco (Dario Grandinetti), who is currently working on an assignment on a female bullfighter, Lydia (Rosario Flores). Through flashbacks, we learn how Marco became enchanted with Lydia and her vocation as a matador. However, when Lydia is attacked by a bull and falls into coma, Marco blames his blooming relationship with Lydia as the cause of her fatal lack of concentration. And it is at the clinic that Marco discovers Alicia and meets Benigo. Thus, is the beginning of an intense friendship, as linear as a roller coaster. During the time suspended within the walls of the clinic, the life of these four characters flows in all directions, leading all of them to an unexpected destiny…

Nominated for 2 Categories, the movie won an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen - Pedro Almodovar and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film - Spain.

In the roles of the two central characters, Javier Camera and Dario Grandinetti are brilliant, straight men at their most vulnerable and torturous. The brilliance of the film is in its script, as Almodovar brings flaws and human enlightenment to the characters. While as a director, knows when to build up moments of suspense, comedy, and melodrama. The art direction by Antxon Gomez is exquisitely ravishing, especially the ballet scenes with lovely set decoration by Federico G. Cambero.

Another lovely aspect of the film is the score by Alberto Iglesias, who brings in traditional, Spanish flamenco-style music to the forefront.

Along the way, paying tribute to the age of Silent films, 'Talk To Her' is a movie of technical skill and rare depth of intellect and feeling!

Is it a "normal" world?

[pedrovelazquez · 1/10 · 6 March 2008]

I wonder only how so many people can talk about love in a case where somebody rapes an unconscious girl. Did I miss something???

There is nothing that changes that fact.

Love is not a disguise, and love is not about stalking. Please! Do not try to make something beautiful out of that. That is a very strange way of entertainment. Mister Almodovar has a very strange view of the world, but new, different or strange doesn't necessarily mean good. It is not about right or wrong, but raping remains on the side of the world, of which I don't want to be a part of.

Pedro Velazquez