Written by: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, María Barranco, Rossy de Palma
Rating: [4/5]
Even in ways we cannot comprehend, we have an impact on others, which only gets heightened when love and sexual attraction comes into play. It compounds the messiness when it involves several others, as seen in the boisterous and fun Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. A film that lives in the absurd and makes it work so incredibly well, all culminating in such an infectiously fun film.
Voice actor Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura) feels the mental anguish when her colleague and lover Iván (Fernando Guillén) decides to leave her. Hoping to speak with him to share some news, she faces many roadblocks as be becomes difficult to track down just as her friend Candela (María Barranco) arrives at her apartment, found in quite the pickle.
The messiness of love and sexual attraction ultimately surrounds each character in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as they deal with its ramifications. Mainly we see this through Pepa who just wants to speak with Iván before he heads out considering he mentioned collecting his items in a suitcase. This remains her primary goal throughout the entire narrative but gets stuck dealing with the nonsense of others making their way into her life. This, therefore, puts her in the place of having to deal with other unimportant things all while this man continues to duck her attempts for communication. It becomes easy to imagine why Pepa experience what gets referenced in the title, but the journey there makes for such an entertaining movie.
Taking place primarily in her penthouse apartment, Pepa’s home becomes a revolving door of issues that continually get in her way, and the way she expresses it all creates much of the comedy here. Candela makes her way into the story, desperately needing Pepa’s help after she had a sexual relationship with what appears to be a terrorist and may have implicated herself in some of their actions. Quite the odd circumstance, but this lands right on Pepa’s doorstep, and she needs to deal with it. Then you have Carlos (Antonio Banderas) and Marisa (Rossy de Palma) trying to tour and buy her place, while also having their own connection to Iván. Everything somehow revolves around this man yet Pepa cannot make any sort of contact with him, making it such disconcerting experience for her.
The more the plot moves along the more it continues to delve into the more absurd when we get to the point where individuals drink some spiked Gazpacho, and it makes a large narrative difference in the efforts to sedate some and those who manage to avoid it. After a while these characters fail to appear real, but it all comes as part of this heightened experience for the women in this film, in particular, and none of it feels unearned. Everything about this remains consistent, and it tracks for everything happening from the very first scene, where we have the ways in which Iván manages to have a hold over women simply through his voice.
Much of this film’s success hinges on Carmen Maura’s performance as Pepa Marcos. Someone we must ultimately feel for in this turbulent circumstance she has found herself in, but also soaking in the inherent comedy of this all convening on her doorstep. Maura steps right into this role and plays up the necessary drama of everything transpiring, and she meets every circumstance with style. Every instance where she throws something out of her window is simply hilarious, as she can barely handle waiting on Iván for much longer as her frustration continues to build. A truly special performance amongst many of Pedro Almodóvar’s leading women.
With each new film, Pedro Almodóvar continues to impress in what he manages to craft, and the way he can seamlessly shift in the tones of this film walks quite the tightrope. There’s a seriousness in moments that delves into some dark topics, especially with what the English translation indicates about these women. We have one try to kill themselves because they can no longer deal with their circumstance, but Almodóvar never quite loses control of maintaining the comedic element of this feature and his control of this particular tone allows for a deliciously fun experience throughout. Some of the bits of dialogue he strings together are quite exquisite in allowing these women to fully express themselves, showing this stands as some of his top-tier work as a writer.
There are no bounds of the negative impact one man can have on a woman, especially if she loves him. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, through its ridiculously fun story, shows how this can expand in a way that reaches absurd levels but works so well because we have a committed cast, the wondrous Almodóvar color palette soaking it all in and a topic that has plenty of runway. Never have answering machines carried more weight in a film, along with the need to watch out from below from projectiles flying out of penthouse apartments. A sumptuous treat by one of the finest working filmmakers today.
Films with Josh 
