All about My Mother

REVIEW
A sweet, funny, big-hearted valentine of a film, dedicated to "actresses who have played actresses," Almodóvar's Academy Award-winning (Best Foreign Film) melodrama at once recalls the best of those '50s Douglas Sirk movies while at the same time examining -- in quintessential Almodóvar style -- lives of the disenfranchised. Roth is wondrous as a mother who, mourning the death of her teenaged son, journeys back to a forgotten past and searches for the boy's father -- now a transvestite prostitute. Paredes brings sublime elegance to the role of a legendary stage actress whom Roth befriends. A joyous celebration of diversity, motherhood and the theatre, this is Almodóvar at his best. (Spanish with English subtitles)