Talk to Her does have some very funny-irreverent moments--in addition to that wild silent movie, which echoes the heterosexual bad boy Bertrand Blier's 1976 sci-fi sex war comedy Calmos, there's a little discussion about whom missionaries in Africa rape nowadays--but altogether it's a very placid, controlled movie about the inevitability of emotional torment in relationships. Even a stunning overhead shot of the sleek back of a charging bull is a thing of beauty for our contemplation. Is it because the characters aren't gay? Maybe aesthetic detachment would come less easily to Almodóvar if he were making a movie about drives he shares. (And between Benigno's sexual immaturity, the dominant mothers, the reversion to the womb fantasy, Almodóvar by implication invokes many of the psychiatric tropes about homosexuality.) All the same, it's easy to recommend Talk to Her but I hope it would lead people back to Almodóvar's early work to see what he was like when he was less constrained by his own skill as a moviemaker.

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