A mi madre le gustan las mujeres

Leonor Watling shows her great talent for the comedy genre in this amusing, weel-made film which fails in portraying the central conflict. The lesbian relationship between the mother's character (Rosa Maria Sarda, wonderful as always)and her lover is totally unbelievable and artificial - they don't even kiss each other during the whole film! - and that affects the credibility of it all. You'll sure have a good time, but it's a real pity that the directors didn't hold the central subject with more bravery than that.

Sofia is the loving mother of three daughters, a concert pianist, and a lesbian -- in that order.

Her recent discovery of her lesbian sexuality, and her relationship with Eliska, an illegal alien from the Czech Republic, is almost incidental to the film. It is certainly presented in a very matter-of-fact way, taken for granted as entirely natural and acceptable. It is not milked for titillation or homophobic humor.

In fact, despite this movie's title and marketing, the fact that Sofia likes women is merely the plot device that sets things in motion and drives the action of the film. (It is also the subject of the very catchy and bouncy title song.)

The real message here is that Sofia is totally in charge of every facet of her life -- something her three daughters emphatically are not. This is especially true of the middle daughter, Elvira. She is the heroine of "My Mother Likes Women".

Where Sofia is a creative artist, Elvira doubts her ability and keeps her first novel hidden in a drawer. Where Sofia is a passionate lover, Elvira screws up every relationship with a man, including her shrink.

By the end, however, Elvira learns to stand up for herself and go after what she wants in life -- and the audience stands up and cheers.

"My Mother Likes Women" is a subtitled Spanish comedy about what happens when a divorced middle aged Madrid mother introduces her three adult daughters to her new lover...a woman. Bemused at the mother's lesbian leanings the three daughters set about to cope with the situation which, of course, leads to a variety of contrived comic moments. Breezy, fun, bright, and well directed, this film is a showcase for Lenor Watling's worthy characterization of the middle daughter; the centerpiece of the film. "My Mother Likes Women" should appeal most to Watling fans, lesbians, females in general, and aficionados of Spanish cinema. Subtitle translations are below par. No nudity and should qualify for about a PG-13 rating for mature theme elements. (B)

My Mother Likes Women (A mi madre le gustan las mujeres) is a romantic comedy lacking the genius of Almodóvar but showing his influence in the madcap passions of the mostly female principals – the mother, Sofía (Rosa Maria Sardà), a pianist; her new young Czech pianist girlfriend or novia, Eliska (Eliska Sirová); and her three daughters, who all wind up with boyfriends in the course of their unsuccessful attempt to separate Eliska from mamá. Eliska does leave mamá, on her own, and returns to Prague (whence a brief musical travelogue à la Bollywood), and she leaves, moreover, with mamá's money, but she pays it back and returns to mamá, at the daughters' own prompting, once they realize how selfish they were being.

It's all about gently shocking bourgeois sensibilities, and it ends in the happy multiple couplings of classic comedy. The opening scene is only titillating if you're amused by the daughters' variously nervous or hysterical responses to the news that the new 'love' their mother has found is a girl. We're given an instant set of 'mujeres al borde di un ataque di nervios' -- only 'women on the verge of a nervous breakdown' may not be an accurate translation of Almodóvar's title: in Spain an 'attaque de nervios' seems to be more like a hissy fit. Amusement at female discomfort is mingled with sympathy for a 'situation' that is really, in any conventional family, pretty hard to swallow. Most of the action focuses not on the happy, if temporarily separated, female couple, but on daughters Elvira (Leonor Watling), Jimena (Maria Pujailte) and Sol (Silvia Abascal), and primarily on the most neurotic of the three, Elivira.

After several false starts due to self-sabotage, Elvira lands an appealingly slim and famous writer of fat novels. Sol, the rock singer daughter, who performs an embarrassing song exposing her mother's proclivities, lands Eliska's brother. The third, married daughter, Jimena, gets divorced from her unsympathetic husband and hooks up with a garden entrepreneur whose company name is 'Plántate,' a moniker that means 'plant yourself,' which I guess they all do, on the screen anyway. Jimena and Señor Plántate meet by the crude, but handy, method of their vehicles colliding in a Madrid street.

It would be tempting to say this whole movie is a car crash. But that would be unfair: however these two lady directors' cinematic efforts must suffer by comparison with the increasingly brilliant and surreally beautiful creations of Pedro Almodóvar, its tumultuous plot only occasionally falters. Ines París and Daniela Fejerman know something about neurotic women, and My Mother Likes Women entertains so long as you can keep up an interest in its largely contrived series of episodes. It has a pleasing cast, a sense of motion, and the bonus of some nice, not too schmaltzy classical piano music. But despite the hip premise of late-blooming maternal lesbianism, it's really utterly conventional and barely skin deep.

This is a comedy that is best flavored in its original language. Subtitles do not give full credit to the Spanish clever dialog. This is a movie for everyone. Who would not go crazy if your mother do something assumed drastic and unexpected? The reactions of Sofia's daughters when encountered with her mother's new love are funny, then dramatic but finally leveled at the end. I laughted most of the film and the mixed audience at the theater was laughing loud too. I liked the film because it is original and funny. The acting of Leonor Watling is superb. Leonor plays Elvira, the middle daughter of Sofia. Elvira has a bag of insecurities but her sensibility is more keen than that of her sisters. She will join Sol and Gimena, her sisters, in plotting to ruin their mothers love affair with Eliska. Eliska is a talented foreign pianist about the age of Elvira. The unexpected situations created are well presented in the film. This is a wonderful comedy.