All About My Mother
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All About My Mother (Todo sobre mi madre) is a 1999 film written and directed by the Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, starring Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan and Penélope Cruz. Widely regarded as Almodóvar's finest and most mature film to date, it won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Foreign-language Film and seven Goya Awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Roth.
The film deals with complex issues such as AIDS, transvestitism, sexual identity, gender, religion, faith, and existentialism; the characters are presented in a straightforward and mostly unromanticized and non-judgemental fashion but with an edge of dark humour.
The title is a play on the film title All About Eve, of which Esteban is a fan. Watching the film with his mother, he complains that the translation of the title into Spanish is a poor one, and should have been "Todo sobre Eva." "Todo sobre mi madre" is also the title of an essay he is writing at the time of his death.
The film tells the story of a nurse named Manuela (Roth) who works in Madrid and lives with her teenage son Esteban, who never knew his father, and wants to be a writer.
One night after watching a play of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire Esteban is running after the car of Huma Rojo (Paredes), the actress who played Blanche DuBois, to get an autograph when he is hit by a car and dies. Manuela sees the accident and, despondent, leaves Madrid to visit her son's father, Lola, who is a transvestite and a prostitute in Barcelona, and inform him of the existence of the son he never knew. While in Barcelona, Manuela reunites with an old friend, a warm and witty transsexual prostitute named Agrado (San Juan). She also meets and becomes deeply involved with Sister Rosa (Cruz), a young, pregnant nun who has known Manuela's ex-husband; and the actress that her son had admired.
The film was named by Richard Schickel of Time Magazine, among other critics, as the best of the year.