Todo lo que tú quieras

after the unexpected death of his wife, and attorney (leo) struggles to accept his new role in life as a single father, attorney, father, and substitute mother for his four year old daughter, dafne. realizing that his daughter, who witnessed the death of her mother, is struggling just as hard as he is, he makes a decision to do what he needs to give his daughter time to accept what has changed both of their lives. the film shows various levels of how society and the legal system views alternate lifestyles: from the legal system and the way absent fathers are treated to the violence and hatred demonstrated by homophobic individuals. it also draws the portrait of how far a parent will go for the love of a child as well as how children need to work out their own emotions in their own time. a very touching film that, prior to watching, was not sure that it would be an effective story. but, i was very surprised at the subtle way the characters were able to evoke emotion from the viewer without falling into stereotypical story lines. my only suggestion is that it would be best to be watched on dvr or disc as the subtitling is very smooth in its keeping up with the dialogue but can sometimes be a little fast.

This is a strange movie.

Alicia, the young wife of a Madrid lawyer named Leo, dies suddenly, leaving him to raise their four-year-old daughter Dafne alone. Dafne cannot go to sleep at night unless Leo impersonates her mother, which he does (with help from an elderly drag queen), but only at bedtime.

Dafne is delighted, telling everybody her mother is still alive, but the transformation causes problems for Leo. The night after her teacher tells Leo that it is not healthy for Dafne to believe he has become her mother, Leo panics, takes off the wig, clothes and makeup, and forces Dafne to admit that he is her father, not her mother. It takes a while, but she finally does; but when she immediately says she wants him to be Mommy all the time, he gives in and does it.

From then on, Dafne never sees him any other way. He takes her to school, the doctor, other kids' parties, and everywhere else they go in drag, and she consistently identifies him as her mother. He takes off the wig and makeup as he drives from her school to his office, and then he puts them back on as he drives in the afternoon to pick her up.

You might expect a story like this to have some elements of comedy in it, but it has none at all; it is a serious drama throughout. But Leo is not made out to be insane, either, nor is it a psychological thriller. It is just the story of a youngish widower and his very young daughter dealing with grief in a particularly implausible way.

It is nicely photographed, though, and Juan Diego Botto is okay as Leo (although he is finally looking middle-aged), and Lucía Fernández Ramos is adorable as Dafne. But the story is just too preposterous to take seriously, and most of the dialog is awful. I guess even the Spanish - who have made some excellent movies recently - are allowed to make a clunker occasionally.

OK , if you want somebody else to watch this movie you may need to tie him/ her to a chair. After the 45th minute, I felt compelled to stop watching, and to walk away and do something that seemed to make better sense... instead I sat there, mumbling my disagreement with the actions of this father. I complained of the easy way in which he gave in to the request of his little daughter. I asked myself if it was a movie with bigger agendas...? I made the presumption that he was giving up on his own hidden desires, and for 40 minutes I hardly felt compassion or sympathy for this father. The rest of the15 minutes, or so, I understood, a man incapable of dealing with reality and coping with a double tragedy. I wandered into the psychological and profound meaning that the writer tried to impose upon us, the viewers, and I realized that sometimes it's not really about how much we have been loving ourselves, but the magnitude of the memory of those that we weren't ready to let go... because what he saw really in the mirror, was the image of the person he missed so much, and not the person he wanted to become. And I saw, too, our ignorance of dealing with new life, in this case, represented by his daughter.

The movie redeems itself with what seems to be the imaginary learning and understanding of a child about love and life.

I could keep writing about this movie, after all, I went into a deep discernment about it, and I realized that one day I may watch it again; with a different perspective, with less judgment, and with the conscience of being more analytic towards life. I do have to say though, that one of the filmmaker's mistakes is that the film doesn't come up with a strong validation for the dad giving up so easily the first time...

By the end we hear sirens, but we know they we'll be okay.

Would I recommend this movie to someone else? Yes, to all of those who preach to know (as I do) about films which don't just entertain us, but make us think for hours and days after.