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TALK TO HER Send This Review to a Friend
The 2002 New York Film Festival's closing night attraction, "Talk to Her," the latest from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, is a major work that looms large among the year's achievements. The film, which was also seen at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, is wonderfully original and moving as well. It involves Benigno (Javier Cámara), a male nurse who is in love with a beautiful ballet student in a coma, and Marco (Darío Grandinetti), a writer whose bullfighter girlfriend is also in a coma after having been gored.
The film focuses on the friendship between the men, who first meet at a Pina Bausch dance performance, and on feelings of loneliness and loss, as well as making observations about communication and chance. "Talk to Her" is a strong, complex story filmed with the customary panache that characterizes Almodóvar's work. It is also quite strange in parts, with the emotions and conversations aimed at the comatose getting very close to the idea of necrophilia. The inclusion of Pina Bausch gives the film a further artistic glow.
One can generally count on Amodóvar to bring freshness and originality to his movies, and he is true to form here, except that this film seems more contemplative in the way it examines its characters and the events that engulf them. Both leading men supply the right tone to their roles, with Cámara the one with the greatest challenge in bringing off the one-way relationship he is having with the woman under his care. The writer-director has also cast well with parts played by Rosario Flores, Leonor Watling and Geraldine Chaplin. The story never stops being gripping as we are transported into an unusual situation marked by suspense as to how the film will evolve.
"Talk to Her" is also enjoyable for its cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe, and the score by Alberto Iglesias provides added power and satisfaction. Put this down as one of the year's must-see films. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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