Bad Education isn't insipid the way Almodóvar's All About My Mother was, attempting too hard to make happy elective families out of drug addicts, transvestites, prostitutes, and the HIV infected. Talk to Her was a lot better, in no small part because the compulsive sexual malfeasance was at the heart of the movie, unlike Father Manolo's in Bad Education. (Priests molesting altar boys may be scissored from the news like the dead motorcyclist and the suicide-by-crocodiles that intrigue Enrique but it's a fairly arbitrary aspect of the movie.) Though it's been shot, edited, and released, to overwhelmingly positive reviews, Bad Education is still no more than a great idea for a movie.
You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.
Alan Dale is the author of What We Do Best: American Movie Comedies of the 1990s and Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.
Article comments
1 - Triniman
Superbly written review, Alan.
2 - Alan Dale
Thank you. I find it tricky to write a review about a movie that's way above average but still doesn't work. At some point I start feeling ridiculously picky, doctrinaire. So I'm doubly glad you enjoyed it.
3 - S
eew, I really don't agree
4 - Leslie Bohn
Alan, your posts are terrific. As usual, you've gotten to the heart of this film's appeal -- and its flaws.
We're never really given the opportunity to wallow in the characters' amorality, like in a really good nihilistic noir. Your great essay puts name to what I felt as I watched, and why i came off entertained and intrigued but unsatisfied.
Can't wait to read your take on Volver, which was also affecting but problematic. Why does its plot seem so perfunctory, when it's really a plot-driven movie after all? I look forward to your take crystallizing my thoughts for me!
5 - Alan Dale
Hey Leslie,
Thanks for the message. I haven't seen Volver yet, but want to, of course. They're rolling it out slowly. I did see Notes on a Scandal, reluctantly, but loved it. Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett finally earn the praise they usually receive no matter what. Working on that right now.