Lucia Romero wakes up one day to find her husband gone. And then comes the inevitable ransom demand, and she discovers to her surprise that although she lived in a middle-class apartment leading a humdrum middle-class life, her husband was secretly rich. Very, very rich indeed. And the kidnappers want it all.
Before she can turn round and shout a suitable Spanish expletive, she's found two surprise allies - Felix, an aged revolutionary old enough to be her grandfather, and Adrian, a fervent admirer almost young enough to be her son.
The opening of the tale is told in a diverting way. Lucia recounts her own story, and half of what she recounts is lies. She then has to backtrack to present us with something more closely approximating the facts. It's an interesting opening, showing how dependent we are on one person's subjective narration for truth. But it's a trick only, and this burst of invention soon peters out. The film then becomes a fairly predictable non-dramatic excursion into banality. Even the dramatic changes of appearance that happen to Lucia as the tale unfolds cannot avoid the ennui from slowly overtaking the entire enterprise.
Even the usually fine Cecilia Roth, generally a lively and animated actress, is subdued in this one. She just doesn't open up in the way she does for one of her more constant directors, Pedro Almodovar.
Has Lucia's husband been murdered, or is he still alive? Are the police trying to help Lucia, or do they have motives all their own? When it comes right down to it, none of these questions really matter, because we simply don't give a damn, my dear.
This is not an anamorphic transfer, so it misses on the finest details that DVDs can give. And colours are for the most part strangely muted, even drab - though this of course may have been the director's intent.
The print quality is, however, quite fine and detailed, with good contrasts and reasonable tonal values. It is just a shame that modern widescreen movies are still being released without being enhanced for widescreen presentation - that's wilfully losing half the advantage of DVDs over other media.
The only audio option is a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track.
This is clear and free of distortion. It does, however, have only occasional and minimal stereo or surround sound effects - it's generally firmly centred with little natural spread - it's really surprising when sound bursts out from that artificial confine.
