| 100 |
New York Daily News
Almodovar is adept at weaving together strands you'd never guess would match.
|
| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
Brimming with bittersweet wit and emotion and built with deceptively fluent craft.
|
| 100 |
New York Post
The year's best foreign-language movie an absolute must-see.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Almodóvar's masterwork, is a spectacular synthesis of everything that has always interested him -- proud women, lovely boys, beautiful drag queens, grand movie stars, gorgeous frocks, wild wallpaper .
|
| 90 |
Newsweek
This is humanism in drag: Almodovar's passionate redefinition of family values.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
A surprisingly satisfying combination of bawdy sexual humor, genuine emotion and a plot with mechanics so excessive that Almodóvar himself calls it "a screwball drama."
|
| 90 |
Village Voice
As straightforward and plot-driven as any movie about life imitating art imitating life could possibly be.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
Just about everyone worth knowing in All About My Mother is female in spirit, which is to say they're all sexy, impossible, powerfully durable souls, quarrelsome and loyal, inventive at navigating the tragedies.
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Pedro Almodovar's transfixing tragicomedy -- the best foreign movie of the year -- is also the best showcase for actresses in ages.
|
| 90 |
Salon.com
So intrinsically rich that it doesn't need any metaphors.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
It weaves life and art into a rich tapestry of love, loss and compassion.
|
| 90 |
Time
The most mature and satisfying work in a glittering, consistently surprising career.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Funny and wise, lively and contemplative, intriguingly postmodern and powerfully moving, all at the same time. It's not to be missed.
|
| 90 |
Mr. Showbiz
The most heartfelt tribute to women -- specifically, actresses -- he's (Almodovar) ever made.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
It's filled with marvelous performances, fabulous wit, and some dizzying images.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
A tender genuflection to the women's energies that keep that spinning world from keeling over.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Marc Caro
Generous in spirit and always engaging as it demonstrates that no matter how difficult life may become, there's no excuse for being drab.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
The characters have a weight and reality, as if Almodovar has finally taken pity on them--has seen that although their plights may seem ludicrous, they're real enough to hurt. These are people who stand outside conventional life and its rules, and yet affirm them.
|
| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
Almodovar still populates his work with characters you'll see nowhere else in movies.
|
| 88 |
Christian Science Monitor
Some will find the movie's sexual antics too explicit and unconventional for comfort.
|
| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
This is more than a movie: It's Almodovar's design for living.
|
| 88 |
San Francisco Examiner
Almodovar imbues his Harlequin-novel-meets-Marvel-comic-book melodramas with something more than a wink and a smile, and it's beguiling.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
As dark as a Greek tragedy yet it has a vibrance and joie de vivre that can't be contained by grief.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
It's enough to make your head spin, but Almodovar, whose mastery of the medium has never been more assured, gives you plenty to think about, ultimately grounding the dizzy whirl of his idiosyncratic fictional world in a story that feels not just true but universal.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
For me it felt like a good many weeks at a politically correct summer camp, though the talented actors--including Cecilia Roth, Eloy Azorin, Marisa Paredes, Toni Canto, Antonia San Juan, and Penelope Cruz--certainly seem to enjoy the taste of the characters they're playing.
|
| 80 |
Slate
Even though the film is full of laughs, the jokes hover on the edge of the abyss: This is a world in which lurid colors and extravagant gestures are means of filling the void.
|
| 80 |
Variety
Jonathan Holland
An emotionally satisfying and brilliantly played take on the ups and (mostly) downs of a group of less-than-typical female friends.
|
| 80 |
Dallas Observer
The unfettered comedy of life bubbling up from the Spanish unconscious continues to be proudly liberationist, gloriously extreme, and achingly human.
|
| 75 |
Baltimore Sun
Almodovar has created an ecstatic homage to the women who have inspired him all his life.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
No one else makes movies like this Spanish director.
|
| 75 |
TNT RoughCut
Don Kaye
Emerges as a thoughtful reflection on the many roles women must play throughout their lives.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
Classic melodrama given a thoroughly modern, utterly Almodovarian face-lift.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
Mothers definitely get their due here: Birth mothers, adoptive mothers and mothers-to-be - with the only men in sight (save for one young fatality and one old eccentric) being those who wear flashy makeup and sport breasts
|
| 63 |
Miami Herald
The work of a talented filmmaker coasting on his own fumes.
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