"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 After he reads her unpublished novel, he hires her to write a story about Amanda Gris.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.

Only Pedro Almodovar can do a melodrama that crosses genres like this film. In one sense, this is a film that you would expect to see on Lifetime.Marisa Paredes (All About My Mother, Life is Beautiful) is nothing less than outstanding a a writer that is going through a crisis with a husband (Imanol Arias) that does not love her anymore. There is, of course, a crisis with her mother (Chus Lampreave - Volver) at the same time. Then, she finds out that it is her best friend that is having an affair with her husband, and there are profession problems at the same time. Sounds just like a Lifetime movie, doesn't it? But, Almodovar manages to give us a great story with his twists. Laughs are generous as comedic situations occur throughout. It's like wanting to laugh at something at a funeral. It happens, and we just have to deal with it.Juan Echanove (who supposedly gave a great performance in Alatriste, the film that I have been waiting for release theatrically, or on DVD) is superb as Ángel, the newspaper editor who fulfills a dream to write romance novels. and who is in love with Leo (Parades).It is just another great film from Almodovar that defies a description that would ever do it justice. Only experiencing his films can ever be pleasure.

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."

The title of Almodovar's later film, All About My Mother, was a nod of respect in the direction of the 1950 Hollywood film, All About Eve, which contains Bette Davis's famous line - "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night". This quote could well appear at the start of most of the Spanish director's films, certainly Flower. Here, the rider on his emotional rollercoaster is Leocadia (Leo) Macias (Marisa Paredes), whose marriage and life are in crisis. She is not as young as she was, and her handsome husband Paco (Imanol Arias) has lost interest and is about to leave her. The "secret" of the title is that Leo writes romantic novels under an assumed name, but hers is not the only secret revealed in the movie.Spoiled and self-centred Leo is not the most likeable of women; her sister Rosa (the wonderful Rossy de Palma) who looks after their aged mother probably deserves more of our sympathy. But the nicest people don't necessarily provide the most interesting stories; and Almodovar isn't trying to enlist our pity, but our understanding. If, according to the oft-quoted screenplay dictum, character is defined by action, then what he shows us is a courageous character who overcomes her self-pity, and takes up life and love again. Leo comes to terms with her loss, in much the same way as the mother in film's opening scene finally accepts that her son is dead. But that episode turns out to be a repeatable training session for doctors, so perhaps Almodovar is warning Leo that loss of love can take place more than once, or possibly he is suggesting to the audience that they regard Leo's story as a training session for life. This unashamed melodrama is conveyed via magical acting, great camerawork, and above all intense colours. There are a few specifically Spanish touches, including a sequence where Leo and her mother return to their idyllic, picturesque family village, and a flamenco dance (to Miles Davis music). As usual, there are also reminders of the downsides of modern urban life, though some of the references to drugs and unemployment are a little forced and superfluous. All in all, this is a great pictorial story teller telling perhaps not his greatest tale, but certainly one worth listening to and seeing.