What Have I Done to Deserve This?
by Pedro Almodvar
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carmen Maura, Gonzalo Surez, Luis Hostalot, ngel de Andrs Lpez, Ryo HirumaDirector: Pedro Almodvar
Brand: Genius
Writer: Pedro Almodvar
Writer: Roald Dahl
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 101 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product features:
- Gloria (Carmen Maura) is a cleaning woman and housewife who is addicted to amphetamines. She lives in the crowded apartment with her miserable taxi driving husband (who once forged Hitler's diaries), her two teen sons - one who is selling drugs, the other sleeps with older men, and her crazy mother-in-law who keeps a pet lizard. Driven by despair, Gloria sells off one of her sons, accidentally
Movie Reviews of What Have I Done to Deserve This?
Movie Review: Another Jewel in Pedro Almodóvar's Crown!
Summary: 5 Stars
Though the films by one of our geniuses of filmmaking in our times, Pedro Almodóvar, is making films now that are polished to perfection - Volver (2006), La Mala educación (2004), Hable con ella (2002), and Todo sobre mi madre (1999) - his early films such as this one '¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!' in retrospect contained all the identifying marks that would establish him as not only one of the bad boys of cinema, but also one of the sensitive cinematic psychologists. And everything he touches gleams.
In this 1984 story of a wildly dysfunctional family co-habiting in Madrid, the star is Gloria (Carmen Maura), a No-Doz addicted maid living in a tiny flat with her taxi driver/forger husband who perseverates on an aging German chanteuse for whom he once worked, two sons - one a hustler and the other a drug peddler - and a wacko mother-in-law who treats food like contraband, selling what she chooses to the family members. The turning point in this raucously fragile but funny family is the chance to make money: the father is coerced into forging Hitler's memoirs with a little help from his German chanteuse's influence,
Gloria bargains with a dentist for her hustler son's possession, ad infinitum!
But leave it to Almodóvar to pull it all off with just the right amount of madness and mayhem, and a jolly dollop of psychology about family interaction and women thrown in for good measure. The cast is a delight (including Almodóvar regulars Cecilia Roth and Verónica Forqué!) and the movie is so fast paced that it feels like a carnival ride - which is very much the way this marvelous director sees his early work. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 06
Summary of What Have I Done to Deserve This?
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 05/08/2007 Run time: 101 minutes Rating: NrPedro Almodóvar scored his first international hit with What Have I Done to Deserve This?, cementing his reputation as Spain's bad-boy director of darkly comedic melodramas. Many of the themes that dominate Almodóvar's later films are evident here, especially his sympathetic affection for downtrodden women like Gloria (Carmen Maura), an exhausted housewife who's addicted to No-D?z tablets and spends 18-hour days cleaning apartments and tending (just barely) to her teenage sons (one deals drugs, the other offers sex to local perverts), neglectful husband, and looney-tunes mother-in-law--all of whom have a particular knack for getting on her nerves. Toss in a prostitute neighbor, an accidental murder, and a pet lizard named "Money," and you've got the makings of a soap opera by way of Luis Buñuel and John Waters, served up with Almodóvar's distinctive blend of compassionate humanity and kinky outrageousness. --Jeff Shannon
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