A mi madre le gustan las mujeres

My Mother Likes Women (A mi madre le gustan las mujeres) is a romantic comedy lacking the genius of Almodóvar but showing his influence in the madcap passions of the mostly female principals – the mother, Sofía (Rosa Maria Sardà), a pianist; her new young Czech pianist girlfriend or novia, Eliska (Eliska Sirová); and her three daughters, who all wind up with boyfriends in the course of their unsuccessful attempt to separate Eliska from mamá. Eliska does leave mamá, on her own, and returns to Prague (whence a brief musical travelogue à la Bollywood), and she leaves, moreover, with mamá's money, but she pays it back and returns to mamá, at the daughters' own prompting, once they realize how selfish they were being.

It's all about gently shocking bourgeois sensibilities, and it ends in the happy multiple couplings of classic comedy. The opening scene is only titillating if you're amused by the daughters' variously nervous or hysterical responses to the news that the new 'love' their mother has found is a girl. We're given an instant set of 'mujeres al borde di un ataque di nervios' -- only 'women on the verge of a nervous breakdown' may not be an accurate translation of Almodóvar's title: in Spain an 'attaque de nervios' seems to be more like a hissy fit. Amusement at female discomfort is mingled with sympathy for a 'situation' that is really, in any conventional family, pretty hard to swallow. Most of the action focuses not on the happy, if temporarily separated, female couple, but on daughters Elvira (Leonor Watling), Jimena (Maria Pujailte) and Sol (Silvia Abascal), and primarily on the most neurotic of the three, Elivira.

After several false starts due to self-sabotage, Elvira lands an appealingly slim and famous writer of fat novels. Sol, the rock singer daughter, who performs an embarrassing song exposing her mother's proclivities, lands Eliska's brother. The third, married daughter, Jimena, gets divorced from her unsympathetic husband and hooks up with a garden entrepreneur whose company name is 'Plántate,' a moniker that means 'plant yourself,' which I guess they all do, on the screen anyway. Jimena and Señor Plántate meet by the crude, but handy, method of their vehicles colliding in a Madrid street.

It would be tempting to say this whole movie is a car crash. But that would be unfair: however these two lady directors' cinematic efforts must suffer by comparison with the increasingly brilliant and surreally beautiful creations of Pedro Almodóvar, its tumultuous plot only occasionally falters. Ines París and Daniela Fejerman know something about neurotic women, and My Mother Likes Women entertains so long as you can keep up an interest in its largely contrived series of episodes. It has a pleasing cast, a sense of motion, and the bonus of some nice, not too schmaltzy classical piano music. But despite the hip premise of late-blooming maternal lesbianism, it's really utterly conventional and barely skin deep.

"My Mother Likes Women" is a subtitled Spanish comedy about what happens when a divorced middle aged Madrid mother introduces her three adult daughters to her new lover...a woman. Bemused at the mother's lesbian leanings the three daughters set about to cope with the situation which, of course, leads to a variety of contrived comic moments. Breezy, fun, bright, and well directed, this film is a showcase for Lenor Watling's worthy characterization of the middle daughter; the centerpiece of the film. "My Mother Likes Women" should appeal most to Watling fans, lesbians, females in general, and aficionados of Spanish cinema. Subtitle translations are below par. No nudity and should qualify for about a PG-13 rating for mature theme elements. (B)

Leonor Watling shows her great talent for the comedy genre in this amusing, weel-made film which fails in portraying the central conflict. The lesbian relationship between the mother's character (Rosa Maria Sarda, wonderful as always)and her lover is totally unbelievable and artificial - they don't even kiss each other during the whole film! - and that affects the credibility of it all. You'll sure have a good time, but it's a real pity that the directors didn't hold the central subject with more bravery than that.

Easy and good film, it's about love, not simply lesbian love: family love, male-female love, girl-girl love ... and sex? not at all (amusing film anyway). A well constructed comedy with a funny and beautiful Leonor Watling, great performance, without her the film will be less interesting, and the story is as I have said funny, see it and enjoy it.

In Madrid, the divorced middle-age pianist Sofía (Rosa Maria Sardà) discloses to her daughters Elvira (Leonor Watling), Gimena (María Pujalte) and Sol (Silvia Abascal) on the day of her birthday that she is in love with the talented Czechoslovak pianist Aliska (Eliska Sirová), who is twenty-years younger than she.

The bigoted sisters are shocked with the revelation and do not accept the idea that their mother is lesbian. Elvira is an insecure and neurotic young aspirant writer that has a lousy job in a publishing house; Sol is the singer of a rock band; and Gimena is married with a boy and has a troubled marriage with Raúl.

When they discover that her mother has lent all her savings to support the education of Aliska, they decide to seduce the girlfriend to make her leave their mother. But when Aliska returns to her country alone and their mother is very depressed, they need to try to revert the situation. Meanwhile the nervous Elvira meets the writer Miguel (Chisco Amado) and has a clumsy relationship with him.

"A Mi Madre le Gustan las Mujeres" is a witty, funny and highly entertaining comedy with a delightful story of prejudice against sexual preference. The unknown (in Brazil) Leonor Watling is simply fantastic in the role of an unstable end neurotic young woman.

There are memorable scenes, like Sol singing her song dedicated to her mother in a rock'n'roll concert; or Elvira having lunch with her boss and Miguel; or the groom kissing the bride in the wedding. In the end, I laughed a lot with this light-hearted dramatic comedy. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Minha Mãe Gosta de Mulher" ("My Mother Likes Woman")