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High Heels Movie Review

High Heels is a 1991 melodrama film directed by Pedro Almodovar and starring Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes and Miguel Bose. It’s such a ridiculous, but solid flick.

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“The next time you want to kill somebody,

pay more attention to the weapon!“

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A singer returns after 15 years abroad to perform in Madrid and finds her daughter married to one of her mom’s ex-lovers. This movie tried to emulate the works of Ingmar Bergman and Douglas Sirk, but succeeded at that only partially. It’s also stated to be a comedy, but I would say that the comedic elements here are episodic and mostly stemming from the silliness of the entire narrative. The movie is more so a melodrama and representing the women’s picture tide in Almodovar’s career.

Victoria Abril was wonderful in the role and so was Marisa Paredes. Both women were well cast and their dynamic together was fantastic. The characterization overall is quite good, which was important for this type of film. Another standout is Miguel Bose, who was apparently a difficult actor to find, but he ultimately fit the role well. And it’s such a crazy dual role of the judge and a drag queen.

High Heels is visually striking as per usual for the director. The movie has a lot of style, but also solid energy to it, fine pacing and a pretty good structure. I did appreciate the score, especially the soundtrack that consists of classical Spanish songs that fitted the mood of their scenes so well while being just so lovely to listen to. These numbers made for quite extended scenes, but they were so charming that I didn’t mind the length.

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The reason why the movie ultimately did not work as well as it could have lied in that silliness of the plot. The twists and turns in the third act were ludicrous and I do realize that Almodovar is obsessed with familial relationships and the theme of identity, but here those themes were not handled in the best way possible. The movie is emotional, but because I found it soapy and silly yet not funny, I couldn’t quite engage with it properly.