Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

To attempt a synopsis of this extravagantly stylish farce would be daft and forgettable: suffice it to say that a lot happens in the absence of anything actually happening. What lingers in the memory is a sustained desperation, and scenes of Wilder-like sophistication dotted with improbable props, actions, inflated campery, and most of Almodóvar's usual repertory-style company. Somehow a deranged and oddly distanced plot is contrived from elements including infidelity, tranquiliser-spiked gazpacho, interior decor, bad fashion, beds on fire, caged animals, demented telephone answering machines, Shi-ite terrorists, motorbikes, sentimentalism, property rental, and madness. Don't expect the delirious, hilarious eroticism of Almodóvar's previous Law of Desire, although the two films share a taste for the thriller elements of high comedy. This is an altogether stranger film - looser, more dream-like, as if directed in the state to which the title refers.