Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988) - film review

Pepa is an actress whose work consists mainly of TV ads and dubbing foreign films.  When her lover, Ivan, calls her to put an end to their relationship, she is distraught but soon realises that life must go on.  According to Lucia, Ivan’s neurotically jealous former wife, Ivan has left her to start a new life with another woman.  Pepa soon has other worries when her best friend Candela reveals that she has been living with a notorious terrorist...

Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of Pedro Almodóvar’s very distinctive style of cinema is its surprising versatility.  There’s an unpredictability and disregard for conventions which makes Almodóvar a very appealing director for mainstream audiences as well as more exigent film enthusiasts.   Of all his films to date, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is probably the one that is mostly likely to please the average cinemagoer.  It’s an outlandish farce of the kind that Hollywood used to make so well in the ’50s  and ’60s, looking suspiciously like what Lubitsch and Hitchcock may have come up with if ever they had decided to make a film together.

The jokes are as fast, funny and relentless as a three-legged veloceraptor on rollerskates - the highlights being a terrifyingly mambo-styled taxi-driver and a TV ad in which the proud mother of a serial killer promotes a brand of washing powder.  Admittedly, some of the comedy goes a little over the top in a few places, but the occasional misfired gag is unlikely to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of the film.  Under Almodóvar’s rigorous direction, the acting performances are almost universally faultless, with special mention for his star pupils, Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas, both virtually unrecognisable from their previous Almodóvar outing, Law of Desire (1987).

The humour is only part of the film’s appeal.  As ever, Almodóvar shows great imagination and flair in the design of his film, and with cinematographer José Luis Alcaine he achieves a silkily seductive look which makes it virtually impossible for a spectator to tear his eyes away from the screen for even a millisecond.  In addition to some cheeky nods to Hitchcock (amongst others), there are some touches of real genius – such as the sequence where Carmen Maura’s black-stockinged legs pacing back and forth take on the form of a mesmerising (and very erotic) kind of pendulum.

It’s hardly surprising that Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is widely regarded as one of the most inspired European film comedies of the 1980s.  The film helped to earn Pedro Almodóvar his reputation as one of the most innovative and skilful filmmakers of his generation.  It may look slight when set aside some of his later achievements but, with its lightness of touch, hilarious comic situations and tastefully kitsch design, it remains arguably the most accessible and enjoyable of Almodóvar’s film to date.

© James Travers 2008

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