Member review

All About My Mother is a Spanish film by director Pedro Almodóvar. The film begins with Manuela (Cecilia Roth) and her son Esteban (Eloy Azorin) who aspires to be an author. It's approaching Esteban's 17th birthday, and the two make plans to go see a play - A Streetcar Named Desire. At the end of the play, Esteban wants to get the autograph of one of the actresses, Huma Rojo. As he chases her car down the street, he is run down and killed. After Manuela makes the decision to donate her son's heart, she flees to Madrid to find the father. This sends her deep into her past, when she reconnects with an old friend Lola, meets a new woman called Rosa who works at a shelter for prostitutes, as well as making a connection with Huma Rojo, the woman her son died chasing after. The story progresses until Manuela finds the father of her son, who is now a transvestite. The film boldly takes on issues such as transsexualism, HIV and homosexuality, and Almodóvar does it beautifully and with humour while still giving just the right amount of awareness about them.