Complex and devious beyond easy recounting, Bad Education is about the fallout from the ending of a "pure" love between boys, consecrated in an Almodóvaran temple--a movie theatre.
Bad Education(La mala educación)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Spain · 2004
Rated NC-17 · 1h 46m
Director Pedro Almodóvar
Starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lluís Homar
Genre Crime, Drama, Romance, Thriller, Mystery
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Enrique, now a successful filmmaker, must confront uncomfortable memories when he receives a script from Ignacio, the first boy he loved while attending Catholic boarding school. As Enrique grapples with the resurgence of emotions felt by a self he shedded years ago, he discovers that Ignacio made grave sacrifices for him decades earlier.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Spain's most important living filmmaker isn't at his very best in this complicated tale, but it raises still-timely questions well worth pondering.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Ultimately, Bad Education must be considered to be a minor effort from a major director.
Superbly orchestrated, visually impressive.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Ken Tucker
May be at once too gimmicky and too sincere. But it still exerts an uncanny power: Like the best of Almodóvar’s work, it throws you a first-love sucker punch that will stagger your heart, mind, and soul.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
There's something dull and evasive at the film's center--for one thing, contrary to its festival buzz, Bad Education tiptoes around the issue of priesthood pedophilia; lovelorn gazes are as desperate as it gets.
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
It's a film noir that grows more potent as its secrets are revealed.
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
A rapturous masterwork.
Such garbage that taking a shower at the Bates Motel is a more appealing alternative.
In accounting for Almodóvar's identity as an artist and a man, Bad Education comes together like a bold and far-reaching summation of his career to date.
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