Talk To Her review

Pedro Almodóvar has always been absorbed by the lives of women. But with Talk To Her, the Spanish maestro switches his focus to men - - albeit two men consumed in differing ways by their love for the fairer sex.

Flashbacks reveal that sissyish male nurse Benigno (Javier Cámara) has spent years caring for the comatose Alicia (Leonor Watling), a dance student he'd idolised before an accident. Journalist Marco (Darío Grandinetti), meanwhile, falls for bullfighter Lydia (Rosario Flores), who gets gored in the ring and also ends up in a coma. As their sweethearts lie sleeping, the guys strike up an odd friendship.

Complete with a scene in which a man disappears - - literally - - into a vagina, Talk To Her is the work of a skilled, intelligent filmmaker at the height of his powers. The kitsch eccentricities and camp merriment of his early films are largely absent, but unlike, say, Woody Allen, who can't escape the huge shadow cast by his past, Almodóvar just continues to grow in stature.

Touching, melancholic and deeply haunting.