All About My Mother (Spanish: Todo sobre mi madre) is a 1999 comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and starring Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz, Rosa Maria Sardà, and Fernando Fernán Gómez.
The plot originates in Almodóvar's earlier film The Flower of My Secret (1995) which shows student doctors being trained in how to persuade grieving relatives to allow organs to be used for transplant, focusing on the mother of a teenager killed in a road accident.
Manuela is an Argentine nurse who supervises donor organ transplants at Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid.
She also makes several new friends: Rosa, a young HIV positive nun who works in a shelter for battered sex workers and is pregnant with Lola's child; Huma Rojo, the actress her son had admired; and Nina Cruz, Huma's co-star and lover, who struggles with drug addiction.
Manuela's life becomes entwined with theirs as she cares for Rosa during her pregnancy, works as Huma's personal assistant, or takes the stage as an understudy for Nina during one of her drug abuse crises.
Rosa dies giving birth to a healthy boy; at her funeral, Manuela finally reunites with Lola.
Manuela tells her that Lola is Esteban's other parent, but Rosa's mother is appalled and says, "That is the monster that killed my daughter?!"
Agrado tells Manuela that Nina returned to her town, got married, and had a fat, ugly baby boy.
[6] Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it Almodóvar's "best film by far", noting he "presents this womanly melodrama with an empathy to recall George Cukor's and an eye-dampening intensity to out-Sirk Douglas Sirk".
[7] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed, "You don't know where to position yourself while you're watching a film like All About My Mother, and that's part of the appeal: Do you take it seriously, like the characters do, or do you notice the bright colors and flashy art decoration, the cheerful homages to Tennessee Williams and All About Eve, and see it as a parody?
[8] Bob Graham of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "No one else makes movies like this Spanish director" and added, "In other hands, these characters might be candidates for confessions – and brawls – on The Jerry Springer Show, but here they are handled with utmost sympathy.
[9] Wesley Morris of the San Francisco Examiner called the film "a romantically labyrinthine tribute that piles layers of inter-textual shout-outs to All About Eve, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Federico García Lorca and Alfred Hitchcock, and beautifully assesses the nature of facades .
His expressionism and his screenwriting have always had fun together, but now there is a kind of faith and spirituality that sexcapades like Law of Desire and Kika only laughed at... it contains a host of superlative firsts: a handful of the only truly moving scenes he has filmed, the most gorgeous dialogue he has composed, his most dimensional performances of his most dimensional characters and perhaps his most dynamic photography and elaborate production design".
But thanks to a sweetly paced and genuinely witty script, pic doesn't become depressing as it focuses on the characters' stoic resilience and good humor".
The website's critical consensus reads, "Almodovar weaves together a magnificent tapestry of femininity with an affectionate wink to classics of theater and cinema in this poignant story of love, loss, and compassion.
It starred Colin Morgan, Diana Rigg, Lesley Manville, Mark Gatiss, Joanne Froggatt, and Charlotte Randle.