"What Have I Done To Deserve This?" (1984)

(Originally released as ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!)

Starring: Carmen Maura, Luis Hostalot, Angel de Andres-Lopez, Gonzalo Suarez, Veronica Forque

First, the Lowdown: It's an episode of Jerry Springer, minus the chanting audience.

Gloria is at the end of her rope. A cleaner by trade who is trying to raise a family in a Madrid housing project, she divides her day between working and finding any means of escaping the suffocating drudgery of her life: mainly through the use of uppers and huffing fumes. Then again, her family isn't any better: husband Antonio is abusive, her oldest son Toni deals drugs on the side, her mother-in-law keeps pining for the village she grew up in (a common theme in Almodovar's films I've found), and her youngest son is a street hustler selling himself off to older men.

Antonio earns his living by driving a taxi. He pines for a singer in Germany that he drove for when he was younger. A fare he has picked up wants to be taken to the same block of flats that Antonio and Gloria live in. However, the fare doesn't live there, he's doing research with the assistance of a whore, Cristal, who lives next door. The man is a writer, resorting to authoring porno to make a quick buck. However, he's sprung on an idea – Antonio's former love, Ingrid, made up a book of Hitler's memoirs and Antonio can copy any handwriting. So, combine the two and you have a potential best seller. Also, before he leaves, he offers Gloria a job cleaning the flats of him and his brother.

Cristal dreams of going to America, where she'll be a star in Las Vegas. Gloria, is too high on vapors and Mother's Little Helpers, to look further than her own two feet. Since she has no money for food or utilities, Gloria accepts the offer to work for the writer and his brother. The writer feels that having a maid will be an inspiration “Capote wrote his best novel with his charwoman.” His brother, Pedro, is less than inspired – having ended a deep relationship with his girlfriend. Pedro's depression is so permeable that it's beginning to affect his work as a psychotherapist.

Toni has been using the earnings he makes from selling drugs to save up for a trip out of Madrid with his grandmother. After working at the writer's flat, Gloria comes home to find that Toni and Grandma have brought home a lizard that they found half-frozen in the park (named “Dineiro”). Fortunately the money Gloria earned from working is enough to pay off some of their bills, buy groceries, and pay for some dental work for her youngest son, Miguel. The dentist likes children (a little too much), but because Gloria knows of Miguel's proclivities, she has him stay with the creepy dentist to pay off the medical bill.

This movie wanders around a lot, and in many ways, with it's “let's put the fun in dysfunctional” characters, kinda reminded me of Takashi Miike's Visitor Q, minus the lactation and necrophilia. It feels a lot like an early effort, much of the character content feels unformed and half-developed at best and spurious at worst (a neighbor’s child inexplicably has telekinesis, but that fact does nothing more than give her something to make her stand out.) There are scenes with multiple character layers, but no character arcs. As usual with Almodovar, there are quite a few scenes that are shot beautifully (a conversation that occurs down a row of shops as two people walk is done from the perspective of the front display of each store), but still there isn't much of a point and when the movie ends you're more relieved than satisfied.

Line of the movie: “Sometimes a father is no solution.”

Two and a half stars. You are getting sleepy.