X
- 1988
- R
- Orion Classics
- 1 h 28 m
- 1988
- R
- Orion Classics
- 1 h 28 m
Summary The wildly hysterical international box office hit, women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, introduces us to Pepa who has just been jilted by an answering machine. The love of her life, Ivan, has just ended their relationship and she is heartbroken. But misery does love company. (MGM)
Directed By: Pedro Almodóvar
Written By: Jean Cocteau, Pedro Almodóvar
- 1988
- R
- Orion Classics
- 1 h 28 m
- 1988
- R
- Orion Classics
- 1 h 28 m
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
85
8.1
Where to Watch
Summary The wildly hysterical international box office hit, women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, introduces us to Pepa who has just been jilted by an answering machine. The love of her life, Ivan, has just ended their relationship and she is heartbroken. But misery does love company. (MGM)
Directed By: Pedro Almodóvar
Written By: Jean Cocteau, Pedro Almodóvar
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
85
100% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
85
100% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The women here aren't afraid to get extreme about love, but in the end, you sense that they are too sound to destroy themselves over the worthless man they have allowed to personify it. That's what lifts Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown from the amusing to the sublime. [23 Dec 1988, p.23]
The smiles don't fade until the finish of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown when we witness Pepa's realization that she has, in fact, come into her own and taken charge of her own destiny. [20 Dec 1988, p.1]
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 43 User Ratings
8.1
91% Positive
39 Ratings
39 Ratings
5% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
5% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 43 User Ratings
8.1
91% Positive
39 Ratings
39 Ratings
5% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
5% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Cómo pueden estar relacionados unas mujeres desengañadas, un taxista fanático del mambo y unos terroristas chiitas? Solo que hay dejarse llevar por la curiosidad y experimentar el humor típico de Almodóvar y sus coloridos personajes femeninos. Busquen a un joven Antonio Banderas, años antes de ponerse en el aparador mundial.
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With Maura delivering an explosive performance, Almodovar presents Pepa's tale with real gusto--with vibrant colors, gaudy personality, mad jokes and a sexiness that erupts off the screen.
The results are high-spirited, with nice ensemble work from Almodovar's team of regulars, but the playlike structure (originally derived from Cocteau's The Human Voice but drastically reworked) is disappointingly conventional.
An explosion of garish colour, wacky detail and surreal complications, Almodovar’s very funny, urban comedy overflows with the unexpected. See it!
Gorging on the bad, bad world of TV soap operas, tabloid news and those Roy Lichtenstein cartoons where anguished women lament their lives with "Brad," Spanish director Pedro Almodovar gets a wonderful rise out of life's lows in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The pace sometimes flags, and there are scenes in which the comic potential appears to be lost only because the camera is in the wrong place. Farce isn't easy to pull off, but Mr. Almodovar is well on his way to mastering this most difficult of all screen genres.
One of the best Almodovar movies and probabily his most comic one since it manages to provide a lot of entertainment. As the title may suggest women here do the show with a brilliantly dialogued and character developed first part and a crazy funny ending that involves guns. What a well directed comedy it is!
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This movie certainly represents progresses in many of the most interesting aspects of Almodóvar's earlier works, the radical subjectivity of feelings, emotions and the exaggeration of strange mix of melodrama and comedy. Misunderstandings and confusion, as well as situations of vaudeville make the movie look like a comic farce, but firm touch of Almodovar's gift to make things different, with its exaltation of kitsch, gaudy colors and hyperbole.
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