Talk to Her (2002)

Starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores.
Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.
112 minutes.

LVJeff's Rating: 8/10

Therapist of the Comatose

Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her is the stuff of a cinema-lover's dreams -- three-dimensional characters, a visually rich production design, an unhurried pace, memorable scenes, a lovely score, and a somewhat twisted, unpredictable story. It explores the themes of loneliness and the different unexpected ways a relationship can develop by following two men who have each devoted themselves to a woman. When the movie begins, one of these women is in a coma under the care of one of the men. The other man is about to lose his woman to a coma as well, and under these circumstances the two men meet and begin a friendship.

I have no problem with any of this. In fact, for most of the time, I was happy to soak up what Talk to Her had to offer. But a particularly daring plot twist that occurs before the start of the last act leaves me feeling unsettled. Basically (and I'll try to be as spoiler-less as I can), one of the men, the main character Benigno (Javier Cámara), does something rather despicable. And I wouldn't have minded this so much if most of the movie hadn't been making him out to be so sympathetic.

Benigno is the central character -- his personality and views on love and devotion drive the film. As the movie opens, he is in the audience watching a modern dance production in which a sleepwalking woman careens about a stage littered with chairs. She would surely crash into them if it wasn't for a man on the stage desperately moving them out of the way of her path. It's symbolic of the devotion Benigno gives to the comatose Alicia (Leonor Watling), who has been unconscious for four years. Benigno, a trained nurse, has spent every day he can caring for her -- feeding her, washing her hair, cleaning her up, and, most importantly to him, talking to her.

"Talk to her" is also the advice he shares with Marco (Darío Grandinetti), who now faces loneliness after his love, the bullfighter Lydia (Rosario Flores), has gone in to a coma due to an accident during a bullfight. But the one-way conversations aren't the only things helping both men. By striking up a friendship and talking to each other, their path of therapy becomes clearer -- opening up communications gives the lonely the strength to do battle.

Although Benigno's devotion to Alicia is truly one-way -- she didn't really know him well before she fell in to a coma -- Benigno doesn't acknowledge it. He really believes communication and understanding exist between them. It leads him to an action deserving of scorn -- to me, it is something unforgiveable. And I can't reconcile his action with the movie's themes of devotion and communication. Nor can I justify what he did based on the portrayal of his character up to that point. After all, until then, he was the movie's major voice of passion, spirit, and warmth. His later action then discredits him in my eyes, and thus also discredits the exploration of some of the film's themes.

I thought a lot about this. I know none of us are perfect -- we can all be victims to a slip of judgment, or prey to lapses of lunacy, yet Benigno's transgression would have taken much more than a slip of judgment to enact. I understand running with this turn of events allows the movie to address the sick depths to which the lonely sometimes sink to, but I feel the event itself is too downplayed in the interest of maintaining compassion for Benigno (indeed, it even eventually leads to a tidy resolution). Too bad this bothers me so much. Talk to Her is excellent movie-making and much of it is wondrous, but my conscience won't allow me to be devoted to unconditionally singing its praises.

©Jeffrey Chen, Dec. 14, 2002

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