Talk to Her

Two strangers are seated next to one another at a Pina Bausch ballet in Madrid: Benigno (Cámara), a private clinic nurse tending to the comatose young Alicia (Watling); and Marco (Grandinetti), a journalist who, due to an encounter with bullfighter Lydia (Flores), will find himself visiting, months later, the same clinic. Not a word passes between the men as they watch the sleepwalkers on stage, but Benigno does notice the tears in Marco's eyes. To reveal more than the first few minutes of Almodóvar's purposefully meandering narrative would diminish your enjoyment. What at first might appear a beautiful, but insubstantial confection steadily grows into his most mature and richly rewarding film to date, alongside All About My Mother. Who today but Almodóvar could switch smoothly between profound emotion and ethical inquiry, high art and gags about bodily functions? Who else would digress with a pastiche silent movie that would never have been greenlit, yet bother (or manage) to make it spot-on in style (Murnau) and structurally essential? About love, loss, loneliness, doubt, desire, faith, forgiveness and the importance of honest communication with oneself and others, the film combines sensuality, spirituality and sheer joy in storytelling in marvellously harmonious proportions.