Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait pour mériter ça?

I found myself wrapped up in this off-beat movie, off-beat that is, for anyone but Almodóvar in the mid 1980s. For him, this one was sort of tame. It's populated by an Almodovaran crowd of demimonde, and struggling proletarians and intellectuals. Some take drugs to get by, some sell drugs but won't take them. Sex is a commodity, and honor a dubious value. The struggle to survive in a harsh urban environment ought not be as comic as this often is, so it's not surprising when Almodóvar brings a little emotional sustenance to leaven the pessimism. But nobody in this film should be taken at face value, least of all the director, and nothing should be taken too seriously. It's fun, and in the end, that's enough.