Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

blanche-2 "The Flower of My Secret" is from 1995, written and directed by Pedro Almodovar. It's not his best, but even a weaker Almodovar is better than just about anything out there.The story begins strangely, with two youngish men, doctors, attempting to convince a woman to let her brain-dead son's organs be harvested. It turns out that it's some sort of training. Leo (Marisa Paredes) is waiting outside to ask her friend for help. She can't get her boots off and needs help.Leo's husband is in the military. She is a writer, a famous one, though not under her own name. She uses the name Amanda Gris. She goes to see the editor of a newspaper and asks to do a literature section for him. After he reads her unpublished novel, he hires her to write a story about Amanda Gris. Later on, he tells her that a film is being made and the story is similar to the novel. When Leo's husband Paco (Imanol Aris) shows up, it's obvious that though she has a great evening planned, he does not share her ardor. And he actually isn't on leave; he just has to leave, and he does. Leo is completely devastated.This is a more serious Almodovar and, though Leo does have a nutty mother, a maid who dances, and the maid's son (a dancer/filmmaker), this isn't a film studded with Almodovar's usual assortment of eccentric characters and situations.Almodovar ties up the theme with the training we see in the beginning -- acceptance and moving on. It's a lovely story of a woman unable to free herself from her life, in the same way she can't get those boots, but who ultimately breaks loose.Though it doesn't quite succeed, "The Flower of My Secret" is worth seeing.

nycritic The drama that had been explored in the erstwhile comedic TACONES LEJANOS takes center stage in Pedro Almodovar's LA FLOR DE MI SECRETO (THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET as it's known in English, even when "flower" is at the same time a literal misnomer and a symbolic term). Of course, it's not without some incursions into mis-direction. At first, it seems that it's going to be a drama about a mother (Kiti Manver) who is informed that her sixteen-year old son has become brain-dead following a motorcycle accident. It takes time for the mother to realize that her son will no longer be with her. The doctors (one of them Jordi Molla) go on and tell her they need his organs to use in transplants. The mother worries that the organs will go to the wrong bodies... and then it pans to reveal this is just a demo film that intends to show how doctors should react to a situation should it present itself. The organizer of this event is Betty (Carmen Elias), who is Leo Macias' (Marisa Paredes) best friend.And here is when we get introduced to Leo (and the story), proper: dressed like a bag lady, she has wandered out into the streets wearing her husband Paco's (Imanol Arias) boots. The reason? Well, he's left her, she has realized her marriage is a failure, and to top it all, she has taken to wearing his boots while typing about it. The catch is, they're too tight. Which leads her to the seminar Betty is in the middle of (the scene at the start of the film) and their banter about Leo's husband. This will reveal some shared issues one of the women ignores, but that's not where Almodovar wants to go. Leo reveals herself to be a romance novelist who goes by the pseudonym Amanda Gris -- a Spanish version of Nora Roberts -- who's written a completely bleak novel that her publishing agency will not take. After all, the public wants Amanda Gris and demands romance, nothing else.Which has Leo take a job in a magazine run by Betty's gay friend Angel (Juan Echanove). Angel loves Amanda Gris; she presents a critic which stabs at Gris' work, a thing Angel admires. Angel himself states he will act as a counter-critic, a foil of sorts, to Leo's attack on Gris. Both form an unlikely friendship that approaches Leo's pain at a tentative level until Paco's arrival (and some crucial denouements) bring Angel and Leo a lot more closer than they thought they would be.LA FLOR DE MI SECRETO moves at a meandering pace -- almost free-floating, barely dependent on plot and heavy on the use of dialogue. For some, this is an irritating departure of Almodovar's more compact stories -- it's as if he wasn't sure where he was going and decided to take Leo's plight and add on as he went deeper into his story. However, this change of pace and style is important to see Leo as a fractured woman. The mother at the start of the movie whose son is brain-dead is only but a parallel of Leo's own attitude towards her dead marriage -- one she pathetically tries to salvage. Until now, she has seen her life reflected in another man who has alienated himself from her, using his military position as an excuse. When her attempt backfires, she tries to go the way out... but life has more in store for Leo. Here is where Almodovar's story really starts to bloom like the "flower" of his title. Almodovar clearly identifies with Leo in her dual role as woman scorned who has to find her way back, and critic who questions the nature of these pulp stories Amanda Gris writes. I would go on and even say that his love for these women is so strong, it wouldn't even be too wild to suggest Angel is his physical stand-in and in a lesser way, the supporting character of Antonio (Joaquin Cortes). Antonio's storyline moves at a parallel level with Leo's and describes the immense love he feels for his mother Blanca (Manuela Vargas), Leo's maid who moonlights as a flamenco dancer. He commits an act of theft which grants them the economic freedom to continue their dance act, and their flamenco sequence is a thing of ferocious beauty. In this, LA FLOR DE MI SECRETO is the first story that incorporates a selfless act of love that goes beyond physical desire, and it shows a director who is okay with not showing comic zaniness in lieu of thoughtful drama that only occasionally has moments of explosive passion.

gcotrell Flor is one of Pedro's understated best. The incomparable Marisa Paredes gives this film its ultimate power. Her extraordinary face details every nuance of the loss of her marriage--"abandonment," as Sr. Almodovar labels it. The rich flamenco scenes reframe the passion and pain Marisa's character moves through during the film. And as nearly always, Sr. A. pays homage here to other works that have informed his vision--a barrage of brilliant and troubled women writers (Djuna Barnes, Dorothy Parker, Carson McCullers, et al.), and "Casablanca" and "Rich and Famous," for instance. I thank God for Pedro. Without him, life would be as the lyrics of the Bola de Nieve song in this film--"no me dejes vivir."

rosscinema Pedro Almodovar is easily one of the most interesting filmmakers in the world today and most of his films are in a strange way tongue in cheek, despite the premise of the story! But in this film its a more serious Almodovar story and while never boring, I'm not sure it succeeds on the level it wants. Story is about a woman who is a very famous writer but writes under a pseudonym. She hates her own work and is hired by a magazine to do a story on herself (They don't know she is the same person). Marisa Paredes is Leo and as she enters middle age she seems to be going through a mid-life crisis. She drinks to much and her marriage is falling apart. Her husband Paco (Imanol Aris) is in the military and always gone. Its evident he does not miss her but Leo looks forward to when he comes home. Definitely a more somber and straight laced story by one of the most irreverent directors in ages. Paredes is always captivating and she seems at ease playing women with deep rooted problems. Film follows her as Leo must learn all over again how to enjoy life and most important, to like herself! Slow moving film as some genuine moments from Paredes but its not one of Almodovars better efforts.