General informations

Duration – 100 minutes.
Director – Pedro Almodóvar.
Release date – February 1, 1989

My comment

A good story, a good setting, but finally lacks action for my taste. Sometimes funny moments, such as the moments of throwing objects out of the window and by chance falling on the car of his ex Ivan. Also, predictable moments, I knew very well that Carles and Candela, there would be something between them. And finally an open end, which disappoints me. Even if the goal was to make it clear that the woman (Pepa) will manage to get by unlike the other two girls. Like for example Candela who is still being had.

My sum up

Candela, Pepa’s best friend, finds herself in a somewhat unusual situation when she falls in love with a Shiite terrorist whom she has sheltered in her home. Scared to death at the idea of being arrested for complicity, she adds a bit of stress and burlesque. Each one thus brings a little bit of additional madness and diverts Pepa from its main objective.
None of these women would be on the verge of a nervous breakdown without the presence of Ivan, a real womanizer, in his fifties, still attractive, a mature man in search of renewal. Still impregnated with Movida, he moves away from it, however: it is no longer really a question of shocking but rather of pleasing.

Synopsis

The day dawns on Madrid. Deeply asleep, Pepa does not hear the alarm clock. She dreams of her ex-lover, Iván. He is working on the dubbing of a western by Nicholas Ray, Johnny Guitar. After the recording, he makes a phone call to his former mistress to announce his departure. Pepa wakes up with a start, but it’s too late. Iván hung up leaving him a message on the answering machine. Going in turn to the dubbing studio after having passed to take the results of medical examinations, Pepa discovers a clue left by Iván: two telephone numbers on a post-it. She thus comes into contact with Lucía, who turns out to be Iván’s first wife. The two women meet by chance, without speaking. For her part, Candela, a friend of Pepa, learns from a television news that she has frequented Shiite terrorists. Panicked, she separates from all the business that could compromise her and takes refuge with Pepa. Too absorbed in her own problems, she postpones the moment to listen to Candela’s story. His rented apartment is visited by Iván’s own son, accompanied by his girlfriend Marisa. Always on the trail of her lover, Pepa is now wanted by Lucía. The two women are unaware that the man is actually preparing to fly to Stockholm with the lawyer supposed to defend Lucía, in a flight that the Shiite terrorists intend to divert to Lebanon. At the airport, Pepa manages to prevent Lucía from killing Iván. She gives up telling him that she is pregnant, and goes home.