Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

4.00
    Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
    1988

    Synopsis

    Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.

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    Cast

    • Carmen MauraPepa
    • Antonio BanderasCarlos
    • Julieta SerranoLucía
    • María BarrancoCandela
    • Rossy de PalmaMarisa
    • Kiti MánverPaulina Morales
    • Guillermo MontesinosTaxi Driver
    • Chus LampreaveJehovah's Witness Goalkeeper
    • Eduardo CalvoLucía's Father
    • Loles LeónSecretary

    Recommendations

    • 100

      TV Guide Magazine

      The film is flushed with bright light and cartoon hues, nicely accenting the fast-paced stew of incidents.
    • 100

      Boston Globe

      The women here aren't afraid to get extreme about love, but in the end, you sense that they are too sound to destroy themselves over the worthless man they have allowed to personify it. That's what lifts Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown from the amusing to the sublime. [23 Dec 1988, p.23]
    • 90

      Los Angeles Times

      The smiles don't fade until the finish of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown when we witness Pepa's realization that she has, in fact, come into her own and taken charge of her own destiny. [20 Dec 1988, p.1]
    • 88

      Chicago Tribune

      With Maura delivering an explosive performance, Almodovar presents Pepa's tale with real gusto--with vibrant colors, gaudy personality, mad jokes and a sexiness that erupts off the screen.
    • 80

      Washington Post

      Gorging on the bad, bad world of TV soap operas, tabloid news and those Roy Lichtenstein cartoons where anguished women lament their lives with "Brad," Spanish director Pedro Almodovar gets a wonderful rise out of life's lows in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
    • 80

      Variety

      This often hilarious, irreverent and offbeat comedy is the most coherent young Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar has limned thus far.
    • 80

      Empire

      An explosion of garish colour, wacky detail and surreal complications, Almodovar’s very funny, urban comedy overflows with the unexpected. See it!
    • 80

      Chicago Reader

      The results are high-spirited, with nice ensemble work from Almodovar's team of regulars, but the playlike structure (originally derived from Cocteau's The Human Voice but drastically reworked) is disappointingly conventional.

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