Retrato de mujer con hombre al fondo

The filming style is average, the dialogue is average, the acting is average. The sex scenes are overly frenetic (probably to make up for the lack of substance to the movie). The main character is the most vacuous and anti feminist example of a woman I have seen in a Western European movie. She is also a pretty pathetic excuse for a human being as not only does she ignore the people who care about her while she wallows in her emphasized loneliness, she also turns her back on a friend who has fallen into deep depression –apparently because to help would be too much bother- and is overtly shown to be unable to relate to those around her on any manner of healthy or significant level. I refuse to believe that women this pathetic actually might still have existed in our society in the late '90's but do think that this script may have been developed in a misogynistic attempt to dissuade women from single career oriented lives.

Meaningful glances and soapy dialogue, wooden acting and titillating, sex scenes. This film has most things that shout stereotypically `Spanish Film'. Oh, I love tinkly piano music over dialogue and this film has that too.

There is a scene with brief moments of tango that are ruined by lame acting of the lead actress Paulina Gálvez. She gets to take her clothes off regularly for a string of lovers and good luck to her. She plays a lawyer in Spain that…well I don't know…

Prettily lit and clean, sterile cinematic compositions add nothing to the film so how this made it to the cinema is anyone's guess. If you have been spoilt with Almodovar, it is pretty clear that melodrama does not have to end up as dross.

This film says nothing and takes forever to do it.