The Flower of My Secret Movie Review

Spaniard Pedro Almodovar is an absolute master of filmmaking. His last five films ( starting with “Live Flesh,” “All About My Mother,” “Talk to Her,” “Bad Education,” and “Volver”) are pretty much perfect, so I began reaching back a bit, to a time when Almodovar didn’t quite have the worldwide attention that he has won and richly deserved (though I believe he has been a big and bigger deal in Spain for more than twenty years).

Starting with 1983’s Dark Habits, continuing on to 1984’s “What Have I done to Deserve This?” and finishing with 1995’s “Flower of My Secret,” his last film preceding the aforementioned quintet of perfection I was stunned by the change that ten years made, and angry that Netflix cannot help me fill in the gap (he made six films in between). But still, I can see a pattern. Like Hitchcock or Woody Allen, Almodovar is an auteur. He is a master chef who works each time with the same ingredients, somehow coming up with something better each time (Of course that roller-coaster reached its peak a long time ago for Woody).

“Flower of My Secret” is a damn good film, but not quite to the level of perfection. Let’s examine the canon then of Almodovar. Almodovar is gay. If you have a problem with that, then you will miss out on some stunning cinema. But that’s trivia, the real thrust of Almodovar’s films are women and that immediately sets him apart from a vast preponderance of the worlds’ cinema. Almodovar’s films are a trashy celebration of life. In the tradition of the Spanish telenovela they include everything but and perhaps including the kitchen sink.

How does Almodovar achieve the realistic and the fantastic simultaneously? He takes us into the lives of women like no other, and photographs it with a surreal crispness, seen at it’s earliest here in “The Flower of My Secret” which takes us into the life of Leo, an anonymously famous author whose love life, and life, is in disarray. We are thrust in the middle and when we stop, a certain end has been reached, but it is most certainly just as well a new beginning. Leo’s marriage has fallen apart, and as a result she cannot write. That is not entirely true. She can write, but she cannot write the pulpy romance novels that are her livelihood. So she takes a job at a paper as a writer on literature instead of about it. She visits her best friend who trains doctors to prepare bereaved families for transplants. She visits her sister who argues incessantly with their live-in mother, who promises incessantly to move back to the village, a re-recurring theme in many an Almodovar film. A woman amidst the madness of family, relationships, and professional life.

Unexpected revivals of love, revelations of secrets…these are the hallmarks of an Almodovar film. Here it is done well, but not to the degree of excellence of his next five films. His older films lacked budget. This one lacks nothing, it’s just another try at mixing in the favorite ingredients; a worthy and wonderful meal, but not the level of once in a lifetime cuisine that Almodovar would achieve his next five times out. Almodovar celebrates art, not only in creating these films, but often including in them long stretches of a stage performance. So the layers thicken. Often an Almodovar climax is a long explanation of things in which our female protagonist discovers truths about her self. The tug between Madrid and the village is a constant theme as well. And sexuality. Almodovar characters are not judged for their revolving sexuality-it’s just another ingredient with which to ratchet up the plot in these fantastic films.

Story: B Leo is a famous writer who lives in anonymity by her own choice but now faces crises’ in all aspects of her life. Never stops moving.

Acting: B Some Almodovar regulars all doing rather nice jobs.

Visuals: B Crisp, clean, colorful Madrid, Almodovar holds his characters often in close-up.

Originality/Innovation: B So much story, so much women, and the artistic touches of subtle mis-direction that show Almodovar ready to ascend to new heights.

Enjoyability Grade: B

Overall Grade: B On the cusp of perfection a film that Almodovar fans will enjoy.