During a play in a theater, Marco and Benigno cross paths for the first time, but don't notice each other. Benigno works in a hospital as a nurse of his girlfriend Alicia, who is in a coma ever since her car accident: he met her while she was a ballerina. Marco writes tourist guides, but decided to write an article about Lydia, a female bull fighter. However, during a fight, the bull gouged Lydia, who also landed in a coma. Marco meets Benigno. When Alicia becomes pregnant by Benigno, he lands in prison for rape, but it ends in a miscarriage. Lydia dies, Beigno commits suicide in prison. Alicia wakes up from her coma and starts a relationship with Marco.
Winner of several awards, "Talk to Her" is a serious, somewhat even bitter drama about fatalism by depicting the topic of two women in a coma and their two tragic lovers, who philosophize: "A woman's mind is always a mystery. Especially in this state", or "Your relationship is a monologue". Pedro Almodovar describes this frustrating, debilitating state of the two lovers, which makes for a sometimes depressive watch, sometimes with very realistic details (Alicia's hair is washed above a bucket, while in a black humored moment a nurse pours practically half a gallon of shampoo between the comatose woman's legs to clean her during her period), yet it seems he somehow lacks inspiration, humor and agility for such a dark concept about disability. Almodovar was nominated for best director for several prizes, but not quite justifiably: he loses subtlety on several occasions, though one has to admire him for the allegorical depiction of a rape of a comatose woman in the form of a fictional black-and-white film "The Shrinking Lover", in which a 6-inch tall man is wallowing between the breasts of his huge girlfriend, and in the end enters into her genitalia. The sole concept wasn't especially well used and feels overstretched, though it has a point. Rosaria Dawson is excellent as Lydia, but only before she is in a coma. In the movie "A Thousand Words", the critics rightfully complained that it was misguided to put E. Murphy, a comedian known for his verbal skills, into a narrowed role where he is not allowed to speak. The similar complaint can be detected here: the two leading actresses are great, but we don't get anything out of them as soon as they are reduced to extras and placed into a coma where they waste the rest of the story just lying in bed.
Grade:++
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