What Have I Done to Deserve This? (film)
| What Have I Done to Deserve This? | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Produced by | Hervé Hachuel |
| Written by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Starring |
Carmen Maura Ángel de Andrés López Verónica Forqué Gonzalo Suárez |
| Music by | Bernardo Bonezzi |
| Cinematography | Ángel L. Fernández |
| Edited by | José Salcedo |
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Production
company |
Kaktus Producciones Cinematográficas
Tesauro S.A. |
| Distributed by | Cinevista (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish German English French |
| Box office |
ESP 116,730,182 (USD$901,508) |
What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Spanish: ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto?) is a 1984 Spanish comedy-drama film by Pedro Almodóvar. The title is sometimes given with an exclamation mark at the end rather than a question mark.
Almodóvar has described his fourth film as a homage to Italian neorealism, although this tribute also involves jokes about paedophilia, prostitution, and a telekinetic child. The film, set in the tower blocks around Madrid, depicts female frustration and family breakdown, echoing Jean-Luc Godard's Two or Three Things I Know About Her and strong story plots from Roald Dahl's Lamb to the slaughter and Truman Capote's A Day´s work but with Almodóvar's unique approach to filmmaking. Carmen Maura has often worked for Almodóvar, she became a synonym for a strong woman and also a gay icon for her role as a transsexual in Law of Desire.
The film is a slice of a housewife's life in 1980s post-Franco Madrid. Gloria lives in a small and cheap apartment with husband and two teenage children: the declared homosexual Miguel, whom she sells to the dentist, and the drug-dealing Toni. Her husband, Antonio, longs for a German woman for whom he was a chauffeur in Germany before he married Gloria.
Gloria's eccentric mother-in-law, a frugal and unhappy woman who hides her madeleine cakes, is another addition to Gloria's household. Cristal, a prostitute who lives nextdoor, is Gloria's best friend. Juani, a dressmaker in the same apartment block, has a daughter with telekinetic powers.
In his taxi Antonio meets the writer Lucas. They connive a plan to make a book with forged letters by Adolf Hitler. Lucas travels to Berlin to meet Ingrid Müller, Antonio's former girlfriend who can help them with this book. The suicidal Ingrid telephones to Antonio. This leads to a quarrel between Gloria and Antonio. When he assaults her in the kitchen, she kills him with a ham leg. Her mother-in-law's lizard Dinero ("Money") is the only witness to the crime. Gloria successfully evades the investigators and is never tied to the murder.
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Wikipedia