My Mother Likes Women

Mama's girl: My Mother Likes Women is a pale Almodóvar imitation

By Jeannette Catsoulis

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has a great deal to answer for. Though his irreverent and sexually audacious style has made him one of the most celebrated European filmmakers, it has also inspired some of the worst pretenders (Jamón, Jamón and I Love You Baby being particular standouts). My Mother Likes Women is Spain's latest attempt to clone the master--and if you suspect there's an original thought anywhere in this movie, a glance at the title will soon convince you otherwise.

The mother in question is Sofia (Rosa María Sardˆ), a divorced concert pianist who brings her birthday party to a crashing halt by announcing to her three grown daughters that she's in love. With a woman--a much younger woman named Eliska (Eliska Sirová) who happens to be a Czech immigrant with no money and not much Spanish. Concerned less about their mother's orientation than her bank balance (Sofia has already bestowed her savings on the new paramour), the sisters begin scheming to destroy the relationship.

With its TV sitcom premise and over-reliance on farce, Mother tries to conceal its nastiness beneath huge lumps of sugar. After the youngest daughter (Silvia Abascal) performs, in public, a degrading song about the affair, both she and the middle daughter (Leonor Watling)--a self-destructive neurotic--attempt to seduce Eliska and hence prove her faithless. Like most of the sisters' dealings, this is accomplished with much hand flapping and the kind of crashing about one usually associates with Roberto Benigni.

The directing team of Daniela Fejerman and Inés París, fresh from Spanish TV, strains for an Almodóvar connection by casting two of his alumni: Watling was the comatose dancer in Talk to Her and Sardˆ had a smaller part in All About My Mother. Though both are excellent actresses, it isn't enough; with social intentions at least 20 years out of date, this Mother is nevertheless embarrassingly convinced of its own originality. "No one ever died of having a lesbian mother," says one character. Maybe not; but after 90 minutes of these mean-spirited siblings, a minor injury seems the least we can hope for.