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Of the many words of text displayed on screen in Pedro Almodóvar’s newest film, the last to appear (before the end credits) is "PASIÓN." Unfortunately, passion is one thing this languid, meditative study of obsession is short on. Film director Enrique (Fele Martínez) receives a surprise visit from a man (Gael García Bernal) who claims to be Ignacio, a long-lost friend from the Catholic school where the two spent their nights hiding together in lavatory stalls from the hot hands of a priest (Daniel Giménez-Cacho). Almodóvar unravels Ignacio’s grim story in a tricky manner, with flashbacks within flashbacks, and does not disguise his debt to Vertigo. Although it’s pretty to look at and less marred than other recent Almodóvar efforts by the self-conscious perversity and floridity he’s made his trademarks, La mala educación is something less than a triumphant return to form. Enrique is uninteresting, and his quest to explore the past through the film he’s making comes off as dilettantish. As a result, Almodóvar’s narrative complexity feels like a tease, an impression not dispelled by the screenplay’s banal third-act turn toward murder melodrama. In Spanish with English subtitles. (109 minutes) At the Kendall Square and the Coolidge Corner.
BY CHRIS FUJIWARA
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