Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

November. 11,1988      R
Rating:
7.5
Trailer Synopsis Cast

Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.

Carmen Maura as  Pepa
Antonio Banderas as  Carlos
Julieta Serrano as  Lucía
María Barranco as  Candela
Rossy de Palma as  Marisa
Kiti Mánver as  Paulina Morales
Guillermo Montesinos as  Taxi Driver
Chus Lampreave as  Jehovah's Witness Goalkeeper
Eduardo Calvo as  Lucía's Father
Loles León as  Secretary

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Reviews

Alicia
1988/11/11

I love this movie so much

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Chirphymium
1988/11/12

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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FirstWitch
1988/11/13

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

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Siflutter
1988/11/14

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

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avik-basu1889
1988/11/15

'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' moves on at a rapid pace right from the beginning. Almodóvar keeps the film moving along while cooking up hilarious chaos all the way through. The screenplay for the film has a very play-like quality to it. The events of the film take place within a few hours of the same day. The characters are all very closely linked and a number of scenes play out in the presence of the majority of the characters in the same room.The film is a bit of a study of the female psychology and female sensibilities. There are three major female characters in the film - Pepa, Lucia and Candela. Lucia and Candela are two stereotypes and they both display weakness and inability to cope in the face of trouble. Pepa is the major well rounded character who juxtaposes those two characters and manages to show a full range of emotions and have an arc over the course of the film. She goes through the emotional spectrum ranging from feeling vulnerable and sad to feeling liberated, strong and determined, she learns a thing or two about herself in the process and comes out of the whole scenario as a different person.Almodóvar consistently keeps a very humorous tone running throughout the film, but there are also moments of great surrealism like the black-and-white dream sequence or the scene with the fire or even the poetic scene where Pepa and Ivan communicate spiritually through the dubbing of a movie scene. Almodóvar also uses the vibrancy of colours(especially red and blue) to express themes and moods. This film was made towards the beginning of his career, but his distinctive directorial touches were already noticeable. Carmen Maura is brilliant as Pepa. She gives us a living, breathing, character who has her vulnerabilities and weaknesses, but who also has the ability to deal with these weaknesses and take control of her life, help her friends and start afresh. 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' is not as breathtaking as some of the subsequent films in Almodóvar's body of work, however, it is still a really solid piece of work that explores the complexities of a character. Recommended.

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thisissubtitledmovies
1988/11/16

excerpt, full review at my location.Director Pedro Almodovar shot to international fame in 1988 when Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown was released. It was nominated for an Oscar and won numerous other awards, as well as smashing box office records in Spain. It is a stylish black comedy that oozes visual flair and a sharp sense of humour from start to finish. It is easy to see why this film was so successful and why Pedro Almodovar has become such a cult icon. Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, although slightly dated, has an incredible amount of charm, a great sense of visual style and a quirky wit that makes it a very enjoyable movie. If you are new to Almodovar, then this is the best film to introduce you to him. Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown is undeniably a grand landmark in Spanish film.

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gentendo
1988/11/17

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a chaotic screwball comedy that examines the nature of gender: its roles, implications, consequences, and cultural stereotypes. Specifically, the theme of the film seems to demonize the machismo mentality of womanizers. In contrast, it succors the women who fall prey to the pseudo-charms of womanizers.From the very beginning, we are introduced to Ivan: a man with an attractive yet evasive personality. He is seen walking alongside a group of women, wooing them with trite compliments in what appears to be a television commercial, or pseudo-dream-world. This scene is very aware of itself: it's an expository and visual catalogue that sets up not only the quality of Ivan's non-committal character, but also establishes a tone that looks down upon the men of the world who "play" women. Ironically, the film is directed by a male: Pedro Almodóvar. I felt as though he was trying to explore the reasons behind women's emotionally nebulous states of mind; not in a way that criticized women for being so confusing to men, but rather in a way that was criticizing men for being so immoral to women. He took the male stereotype of manliness, exaggerated it within the character of Ivan, and then sought to examine the harmful consequences of what Ivan-like personalities can cause upon naïve, sensitive women. In other words, Almodóvar seems to suggest that men view women as crazy because they are unable to view themselves as behaving immorally towards them. Though the argument can hold true from the opposite perspective, I think Almodóvar was fair to place men in the negative light: it acting as a critique upon his own manliness rather than pointing the blame upon women. Since he's a man, he can't really be accused of being chauvinistic.The women in the film are having, as the title suggests, nervous breakdowns due to immoral men— two of which whose lives are negatively affected by Ivan's womanizing (Pepa and lunatic Lucia). Pepa's and Lucia's maudlin behavior consequently affects (for worst) the lives of those around them. For example, Pepa wasn't being charitable towards her suicidal friend, Candela, because she was too wrapped up in her own agitated mind concerning Ivan. These women are shown doing absurd things in order to justify their hurt feelings from poor relationships: burning beds, overdosing on sleeping pills, attempting suicide, holding each other at gun point, etc. As I questioned why they were doing all of these crazy things, my mind always came back to the same answer: all of their behavior was a reaction to a man's infidelity and non-commitment.Granted that the women in the story had freewill and did not have to react so irrationally, it didn't help much that their emotions were being toyed with by ambivalent men. A more refined theme can now be extracted from the film: poor relationships spring from poor morality, and poor morality comes because of greed. Consider Antonio Bandera's character. He's in a relationship with a somewhat controlling woman, who, when she gets drugged up, he leaves her for Candela because she's new, fresh. This idea plays off the difficulty of transient relationships: they start of fiery and passionate, but blow out too soon because of boredom and non-commitment. When given the chance to behave immorally, Bandera's character leaps at the chance. He selfishly desires the feelings of love, but not the work it takes to establish a real loving and lasting relationship.Almodóvar exaggerates the film aesthetic-look to help convey these themes. Pastel colored walls, flamboyant costumes/dress, extensive set-design of plants, and over-the-top acting/stunts creates an atmosphere of hyper-stress and confusion. All these elements act as outward physical manifestations of the inner-turmoil he's trying to express regarding male-female relationships. Relationships are chaotic and screwball. They often create stress and confusion. In "normal" relationships outside the movies, the tensions that Almodóvar presents in his film regarding male and females are often experienced in more subtle ways. Instead of committing suicide over troubled relationships, we might gossip with the person next to us as to why we don't like whomever (though, indeed, many suicides have resulted from poor relationships). Almodóvar merely exaggerates common problems existent in these types of relationships in order to provoke how we feel inside when being tortured by a man or woman. In context of the movie, though, I feel that women will identify this film as a work of justice; one that slams upon men who ought to know better. For men, this film is a learning tool of why not to give mixed signals, let alone behave immorally—by doing so they only confuse the female species even further. I wonder what this film would have been like if directed by a woman: I'll assume the opposite would hold true of degrading women rather than men.

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lastliberal
1988/11/18

With the Toronto Film Festival going on this weekend, it is appropriate that this is my second venture into Pedro Almodóvar's films, as it won the People's Choice Award at that festival in 1989.Almodóvar wrote and directed this very funny film that is a far cry from Matador. Antonio Banderas is back, this time with a Lyle Lovette haircut, as the son of a philandering husband (Fernando Guillén), who also cheats on his girlfriends.Carmen Maura (Volver0 leads a superb cast as the girlfriend that just got dumped. She is hilarious as she appears to be losing it. In comes her girlfriend (María Barranco), who is afraid of being arrested for harboring Shiite terrorists (this is 1998!). Add Banderas and his mother to the mix, and you have one laugh after another.It even had a great line reminiscent of "A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle.":Ana (Ana Leza, who was married to Banderas before Melanie Griffith came along): I'm fed up. I'm gonna get myself some quick cash, buy myself his bike and split. With a bike, who needs a man? Pepa (Carmen Maura): Learning mechanics is easier than learning male psychology. You can figure out a bike, but you can never figure out a man.It is almost misogynistic to say the movie was very funny as all the women were hysterical, but it was.

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