It didn’t work for me.I liked the acting; Penelope Cruz is good (although she doesn’t look like any of her “family” members, while they do somewhat look like they could be related to each other, which is distracting, not to mention the numerous loving shots of her cleavage and her padded bum); the story is typical Almodovar; I don’t know why, exactly, but it just didn’t take off for me.The things I find charming about Almodovar ordinarily — the ability to crank around 90 degrees and take off in a different direction, the exhausted giddiness that is somehow so touching — irritated me here.It was undercooked somehow, and the expositional “reveal” of the dark secret most sentient viewers figured out an hour before sort of typified that, for me.It just felt slapped together and not quite done in spots…it felt minor.(11/27/06)

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