Pedro Amodovar

(In French, On TV, July 2020) I wouldn’t exactly call myself fascinated by writer-director Pedro Amodovar’s movies—but I seldom miss an occasion to watch them when it’s convenient, and I can usually look forward to something interesting in each of them. It’s not always happy with the results—Amodovar’s films are often self-indulgent (for good or worse), slow-paced, and his weirdest films often pile up so many wacky implausible hijinks atop each other that they become performance art rather than narrative. Still, there’s something intensely personal about most of his movies, and his way of writing female characters is distinctive. High Heels does manage to strike a sometimes-uncomfortable balance between character drama and wacky hijinks: it’s a murder mystery that pays far less attention to the murder than to the way that the characters react to the aftermath. It’s about a complex mother/daughter relationship that often appears to have no basis in reality but somehow works in-context. It’s a film with three male characters all played by the same actor, which raises a tremendous number of questions about the true importance of male characters in it. It’s crazy, unbelievable, and weirdly compelling because of it. High Heels may not be acknowledged as being in Amodovar’s top tier, but it certainly has its rewards.