I saw this film at Málaga Spanish Film Festival, and didn't know what to expect about it...
Adapting a novel by Juan José Millás, and well acted by most of the cast (but it is Charo López's movie, and it is obvious since the movie starts...), the movie delivers a slow pacing and some good twists... but it is almost killed by these factors:
a) Ramon Langa, a superb dubbing actor that is better always off-screen than on-screen. His face is like a mask, and despite the emotions he can show with his voice, those emotions never show in his face.
b) The movie's pacing is too slow... at times I wondered if the novel was a short story. I can see what's the point in showing López wandering through the streets of Madrid... but it is overused.
c) Charo López is excellent at some points of the movie... but she wasn't flawless... I didn't buy her performance at several points.
d) The most interesting characters - apart from López's - are Iñaki Font's and Ingrid Rubio's... and they are clearly underdeveloped. Only Font's and Rubio's talent make them really believable, in what I thought were the best performances in the movie. I can see Iñaki Font scoring a nod for New Actor at 2001 Goyas.
To summarize... in Almodóvar's hands, we should be talking of an Oscar contender for several categories... It is a movie FOR Almodóvar... but instead it went to argentinian director Sergio Renán, that cold only deliver a correct movie with a huge casting mistake (Ramón Langa) in a key character.
