Talk to Her

Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar has a special talent for making eccentrics feel accessible, and in Talk to Her, his sympathetic central weirdo is an awkward, obsessive, socially incongruous male nurse named Benigno (Javier Camara) with a stalker's crush on a comatose patient and only one friend--Marco (Dario Grandinetti), the lover of a female bullfighter who is also in a coma after being gored in the arena. While Marco's situation is a devastating drain on his heart and his sanity, Benigno (whose sanity is already in question) knows that a comatose state is the only condition under which he can have the girl he thinks he loves. Almodóvar (All About My Mother) is a master of emotional texture, peeling away layers of feelings until he reaches Benigno's troubled psyche and Marco's loving soul, and when the nurse's fantasy turns amorally impulsive, Marco's benevolence guides his efforts to try to save his friend--turning dire, shocking and eventually miraculous events into transformations of spirit. Parts of Talk to Her may be difficult to digest for those without Marco's saintly altruism, but both the performances and Almodóvar's transcendent, Oscar-nominated direction make the picture compelling even in its most provocative moments. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include subtitled audio commentary by director Pedro Almodovar and costar Geraldine Chaplin, and trailers. Bottom line: A lively commentary track is the only real extra on this Oscar-winning film--one of 2002's best--from the Spanish master.] (R. Blackwelder)