Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 39
Fresh: 31 | Rotten: 8
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 12,585
This Pedro Almodóvar melodrama examines how several lives are changed by a single gunshot. Adapting the novel Live Flesh by British mystery author Ruth Rendell, Almodóvar has given the material a Spanish makeover with added political thrust. Beginning in 1970 in Franco's Madrid, when a prostitute (Penelope Cruz) gives birth to a son, Victor, the story leaps forward to contemporary Madrid. Wealthy diplomat's daughter Elena (Francesca Neri) is watching Luis Buńuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo
Jan 16, 1998 Wide
Apr 10, 2001
Goldwyn Films
All Critics (46) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (32) | Rotten (8) | DVD (11)
The overall purpose of Live Flesh, the latest and reputedly most 'mature' work from Spanish bad-boy director Pedro Almodovar, remains engigmatic.
I can only conclude that the people who think Flower and Live Flesh represent the new, mature Almodóvar think that his earlier pictures were immature.
Like the gorgeous cinematography (which is used to good effect to eroticize a sex scene), this is all part of Almodovar's stylistic package. Never has it been more impressive than here, where everything (not just the flesh) is vibrant with life.
Almodovar, whose work here has newly sophisticated polish, appreciates the dark twists of this story along with the eroticism that bring heat to all the scheming.
The film also feels curiously underpopulated, unenlivened by any sparky character bits.
Very much an Almodovar picture with most of the anticipated outrageous occurrences intact.
Pedro Almodovar has done something nearly unheard of: he has made a wheelchair movie without maudlin sentiment and overbearing importance. Even better, it's actually rather enjoyable.
Another offbeat Almodovar treat - with another compelling Bardem performance.
It is a pleasure to see such a tight work from Amaldovar.
gripping and gorgeous
Witness the increasing promise of Pedro Almodóvar, in a film that has gone largely unnoticed in his career but stands as a worthy and mostly mainstream entry into his unique style of twisted relationship movies.
Javier Bardem, and Liberto Rabal, are easy on the eyes and make the movie worth watching. It's a mildly interesting story, somewhat predictable, and with its fair share of slow moments. And as is so often the case in Almodovar movies, the intense connection between characters is shown through melodrama...not character
April 12, 2011Super Reviewer
Life, love, desire...and everything in between.
December 15, 2009
Super Reviewer
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