In some ways, that makes All About My Mother an effective entertainment. After all, some of those melodramas are pretty damn good, and Almodóvar's film shares many of their virtues, from a crackling pace to lively supporting characters who stand around dispensing bitchy witticisms. But the lurid plotting seems like a straight version of one of Almodóvar's prankish early comedies, like What Have I Done to Deserve This? or his best-known film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. And when the material is this soapy, straight isn't necessarily better.

In this partial tribute to All About Eve (hence the title), Cecilia Roth plays Manuela, a hospital organ coordinator who decides to celebrate her son's 17th birthday by taking him to see a Spanish production of A Streetcar Named Desire. It's a rainy night, though, and a chance encounter with Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes), the actress playing Blanche DuBois, results in a tragedy that affects both women's lives. In the aftermath, Manuela becomes the center of a small surrogate family that includes a flamboyant transvestite (Antonia San Juan) and a young nun (Penelope Cruz) who harbors a dark secret.

Almodóvar made a joke of such brazen contrivances in his earlier movies, so much so that he began to lapse into worn-out ironies and facetious stylistic excess. In recent films such as The Flower of My Secret and Live Flesh, he seemed much more emotionally committed to his material, without sacrificing his flair for exotic camera angles or evocative decor. Here, though, the plotting is unashamedly manipulative: He's angling for tears now instead of snickers, but the effect is still weirdly artificial. And although the movie pays tribute to the roles of strong women--the movie is lovingly dedicated to Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, and Romy Schneider, as well as all mothers and actresses--the wild plot twists do little to enhance our understanding of the characters. Try making sense of the nun's past with the little Almodóvar tells us about her.