Really Surprised!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Pedro Almodóvar can't deal with the middle-ground. He likes to speak only in the high or the low, drenching his films in vibrant, Sirkian style that has to decide whether it's dressing an emotionally tumultuous drama or a light-speeded comedy. His career, beginning in the 1980s, has been long but equipped with as many misses as hits. Almodóvar's best make for startling unison between style and substance, deliberately artificial atmosphere turning more flaming as the goings get rough; his worst still look great, but they sometimes ramble, never going anywhere and never giving the style a place to grab onto. The red trench coats, red lipstick, and red pumps of Almodóvar's distinctly feminine characters are buried in catty conversations, Joan Collins schlock tears, leaving more of an image than an impression. "The Flower of My Secret" is a quintessential example of an Almodóvar miss, absorbing in its aesthetic but distant in its ability to capture the imagination. Heavyweights like "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Broken Embraces" rip our throats out with their passion towards screwball zeal/Technicolor noir cynicism. But lightweights, "The Flower of My Secret" being a prime example, don't allow us to think about anything besides how scrumptious everything looks. There is nothing wrong with an obsession toward visual materialization, but one can only stare at a painting before they want to move on to something that knocks them off their jaded feet.Marisa Paredes portrays Leo Marcías, a bestselling romance novelist who writes under the pseudonym Amanda Gris. Leo, though, doesn't take pride in her work like Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts. She hates it, desperate to be taken seriously but unable to publish anything meaningful thanks to a paralyzing authorial contract. It's becoming impossible to write such fantastical material, considering her husband (Imanol Arias) has no interest in solving marital problems and her closest friends seem ready to betray her at any waking moment. Finding no other way to fix the cracks that rough up her life, she decides to take a job at local newspaper El Pais as a literature critic. Well aware that she will have to eventually attack her own book, Leo finds unsettling excitement in the idea of publicly diminishing her work after years of painful gloating."The Flower of My Secret"'s story sounds ready for screwball comedy treatment, but in execution, its plot feels rather haphazard and messy, taking more time to ignite itself through speedy small talk than conversation that actually moves the plot forward. Consider the film opens with a false lead: we think we're about to watch the tragic story of a middle- aged woman losing her son in a motorcycle accident, but it turns out to be a organ donation center training video in production. Scenes like this are amusing, yet they don't go anywhere. As a whole, "The Flower of My Secret" has no problem when it comes to being compulsively watchable. Cohesiveness, identity, authenticity — those are the issues that make the film so unmistakably flawed. The characters spend a whole lot of time gabbing and tearing up, but we never find ourselves entwined in their conversations, moved by their sudden outbursts of emotion.Almodóvar, though, is incapable of making a movie that isn't stunning in its artistic vision. Photographically and directionally, "The Flower of My Secret" is visionary and eye- poppingly deliberate in its color; missing is interest that makes its look have meaning. But Parades gives a wonderful performance and Almodóvar sustains maturity — there are diamonds to be found in the candy colored rough.

Very good and interesting film. Those who like stories dealing with paradox and stuff will love it. The acting by the leading actress, Marisa Paredes, is fantastic. The art direction is very good, love the contrast of the colors and how they affect our perception about the characters. It has good production values. Again, it may not touch in new grounds on filmmaking, but is an extremely enjoyable film regardless. Keep in mind that is the first Almodovar film I've watched, so yeah. I heard somewhere it disappoints the true "Almodovar" fans. Well, I cant say nothing about it other than I don't give a damn for now.

Yes, the line at the beginning is also on another movie: "All about my mother", where Manuela (who is the transplant coordinator at a Hospital) received the same news, with almost the same words. Although, excellent movie and all actors stunning. Chus Lampreave as funny as always, and Rosy De Palma nailed the middle aged lady character. I totally recommend this movie. One of the most dramatic movies from P. Almodovar. Marisa Paredes is a great actress, and had some main roles on Almodovar movies (All about my mother,High Heels/tacones lejanos) and this one. Juan Echanove gets the Teddy Bear tenderness, I just love him. Joaquin Cortes had a brief role, and had a little dance. I think he is very innovative and very powerful Bailaor. I tried to find "High Heels" but it seems very hard to find in the States. I'll keep trying.

In a hospital doctors announces to a woman her son is dead... She goes through a phase of denial and refuses to donate his organs for transplant. After awhile, the spectator understand all that was a training simulation. In how many of Almodovar films was this sequence repeated?Name at least two.