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A Masterpiece!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

La Mala Educacion is not for the faint of heart, or the homophobic. Although not explicitly graphic, it can be difficult to watch for people that are accustomed to heterosexual love scenes. Not only that, but there are implications of child molestation (that are not explicitly shown, mind you but heavily implied). However, what makes this movie so stunning to me is not its shock factor - there are plenty of movies that deal with trans gendered characters, child molestation and homosexuality - what makes this movie so stunning is how a plot line with this theme is woven so intricately on so many different dimensions through the retelling of a story - "La Visita", a story that is fundamental to all that happens in this movie, not only through what happens in the story, but what happens when the story is recreated in a movie.Gael Garcia Bernal proves he's not just another pretty face in this movie (even though as Zahara, I have to admit, he is gorgeous! He makes for a beautiful woman). He steals the show through his compelling performance and the way he executes the multi-faceted dimensions of his character. Fantastic, a deep movie that even if you don't find yourself immediately enjoying, you'll certainly be thinking about it long afterwards.

As a relatively impartial observer (not homophobic, not homosexual), I found this to be an outstandingly dull film. In truth, the acting isn't bad and the plot line is cleverly constructed but what is it about and do we really care? There's a vague reference to the pederasts of the Catholic Church in there which might have been interesting if fully explored but it says nothing about the relationship at all and simply focuses on a theme of misplaced love. It's not predictable either as the plot is nicely constructed around a film that has been inspired by the events in the pasts of the protagonists. Yet it says nothing, does nothing and continues at a leaden pace, neither intriguing nor entertaining. Much as I love my gay friends, it reflected what is for me at least the vacuity of the homosexual lifestyle...surely it can only be appreciated by gay people?!?!

Within a world of gays, junkies, drug-addicts, transvestites and pedophilia by priests, Pedro Almodóvar made a dramatic story of love, blackmail and death, well told, solidly and stoutly directed. The plot is well and realistically built and developed and it's entirely believable except somehow in what happens to the characters performed by LLuís Homat and Francisco Boira in the end which sounds a bit artificial. But this small flaw doesn't affect much the general value of the movie which is rather good.It has also another movie within the movie both very well intertwined. The performers do a very good job. It's a movie that on the whole touches our deep feelings if we can be able of understanding those somewhat odd characters that may be considered as awkward according to conventional prejudices and providing we rise above these same prejudices.

A meta-fictional construction; with one character writing a script that serves as a key to the past, which is then subsequently adapted by another character, creating a film that holds the secrets to the present. It is all blended together with the director's usual interest in characters that exist on the fringes of society - with artists, crooks, adulterers, lesbians, homosexuals and transvestites all interacting with a narrative of reminiscence that deals with the director's usual interests in illicit and obsessive love affairs, hopes and desires, secrets and lies - and all further embellished with the filmmaker's continuing reliance on films about film-making and the allure of the cinema itself. It is also a thriller, and a film that deals with the controversial blending of childhood, religion and sexuality; though all handled with a confidence and a subtly by Almodóvar that many of his more scathing critics may not necessarily expect.The drama focuses on the aftermath of such events, looking at how the ghosts of the past have shaped the course of these characters lives over the ensuing sixteen years, and more importantly, how the various unanswered questions that have plagued these protagonists will once again come under close scrutiny following a chance encounter that conspires to throw together elements of the past and the present, for what could be the very last time. Throughout the film, Almodóvar offers us many interesting twists and turns, while still managing to maintain our connection with the characters and the friendship that develops between the two protagonists to form the main bulk of the story. Once again, this relationship is a subtle one in comparison to many of Almodóvar's earlier films, such as Matador (1986) or Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), but nonetheless, it is still indicative of the director's style and flair; with the ironic visual compositions, bold, summery colour schemes, leaps within the narrative, characters within characters and the always delightful subversion of camp, melodramatic kitsch, into something altogether more moving.As ever with this particular combination of cold film-noir and feisty melodrama - used most notably in the director's earlier masterwork The Law of Desire (1987) - the background of the characters are used in a way that is entirely self-aware; fitting into the meta-textual tapestry that Almodóvar is able to weave so seamlessly, taking in elements of cinematic self-reference, memory and fiction, not to mention the contradicting elements of the real and the imagined. It works because the experiment is tied to a story that is interesting enough to support the bold leaps from comedy to drama, from warm nostalgia to cruel reality, and because the characters remain interesting and engaging throughout. Again, there is a certain self-aware quality to the portrayal of these main characters, as if they are somehow looking in on their own lives and documenting their fate as it appears (a familiar devise in all of Almodóvar's work), and yet, they remain sensitive, believable, intelligent and ultimately sympathetic.It is perhaps worth noting also that Bad Education (2004) is Almodóvar's first explicitly "gay film" since the aforementioned Law of Desire nearly twenty years earlier (though there were certainly elements of a homo-erotic subtext to the highly successful Talk to Her, 2002); with the return to these themes offering a nice change of pace from the female centric dramas and tales of obsessive male/female partnerships that acted as the central focus of his work throughout the 1990's. It is also notable for being a return or recreation of sorts to the late 70's/early 80's world of the Madrid art-scene that had flourished, post-Franco, and was home to none other than Almodóvar and his collaborators before the success of their first film, Pepi, Luci and Bom (1980). Like Almodovar, one of the characters here is a filmmaker that has found success in the underground, and combined with the recreation of the early gay-scene, with its attitudes and trends, we can begin to see this as a much more personal and important work within the Almodóvar filmography than we might have previously suspected.