Hable con ella
| Talk to Her | |
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U.S. theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Produced by |
Agustín Almodóvar Michel Ruben |
| Written by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Starring |
Javier Cámara Darío Grandinetti Leonor Watling Geraldine Chaplin Rosario Flores |
| Music by | Alberto Iglesias |
| Cinematography | Javier Aguirresarobe |
| Edited by | José Salcedo |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by |
Warner Sogefilms (Spain) Sony Pictures Classics (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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112 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish |
| Box office | $51,001,550 |
Talk to Her (Spanish: Hable con ella) is a 2002 Spanish comedy-drama written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Geraldine Chaplin, and Rosario Flores. The film follows two men who form an unlikely friendship as they care for two women who are both in comas. The film's themes include the difficulty of communication between the sexes, loneliness and intimacy, and the persistence of love beyond loss.
The film was a critical and commercial success, winning the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film while Almodóvar won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It is now generally regarded as one of the finest films of the 2000s.
The story unfolds in flashbacks, giving details of two separate relationships that become intertwined with each other.
During a performance of Café Müller, a dance-theatre piece by Pina Bausch, Benigno Martín and Marco Zuluaga cross paths, but the two men are no more than strangers. Still, Benigno notices that Marco cries.
Marco is a journalist and travel writer who happens to see a TV interview with Lydia González, a famous female matador. He thinks that an article on her would be interesting and, on the instructions of his editor, he contacts her in a bar, where she asks him to take her to her house. As they talk, she elaborates on the fact that she broke up with her boyfriend “el Niño de Valencia”, another matador, something that has been all over the tabloids. As Marco confesses that he knows nothing of bullfighting and that he is a journalist, she becomes angry and leaves his car without saying a word. As he drives off, he hears a scream inside her house and stops; Lydia rushes off and climbs back into his car: she asks him to kill a snake that she found in her house. He does so and comes out of the house crying. With that new confidence established between them, they become friends and, later on, lovers. Marco attends a wedding in Toledo and is surprised to find Lydia there too, since she had said that she did not want to go. The wedding turns out to be that of Marco’s former fiancée, Angela, who had the same phobia of snakes as Lydia; Marco was very much in love with Angela and had a very hard time getting over her (which was the reason for his constant crying over things he could not share with her). Lydia says that she has something important to say, but she prefers to wait until after the bullfight that afternoon; but she is gored and becomes comatose. Marco does not leave her side at the hospital and finally befriends Benigno, who recognizes him from the dance-theatre performance. Marco is told by the doctors that people in a coma never wake up and that, while there are miracle-stories of people who have come back, he should not keep his hopes high.
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