Fresh
In accounting for Almodovar's identity as an artist and a man, Bad Education comes together like a bold and far-reaching summation of his career to date.
Scott Tobias, AV Club
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Bad Education
Overview
When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.
Director and cast
- Pedro Almodóvar Director
- Gael García Bernal as Ángel/Juan/Zahara
- Fele Martínez as Enrique
- Daniel Giménez Cacho as Padre Manolo
- Lluís Homar as Sr. Manuel Berenguer
- Francisco Maestre as Padre José
- Francisco Boira as Ignacio
- Juan Fernández as Martín
- Nacho Pérez Cast
- Raúl García Forneiro Cast
- Javier Cámara Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
88%
Tomatometer
Fresh
It still exerts an uncanny power: Like the best of Almodovar's work, it throws you a first-love sucker punch that will stagger your heart, mind, and soul.
Logan Hill, New York Magazine/Vulture
Rotten
Simple melodrama, a not-that-puzzling puzzle of a film noir.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
Fresh
Taken at face value, Bad Education is about molestation, but from a wider perspective, it's about love, loss of innocence and the desperate quest for redemption.
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic
Fresh
Even though Bad Education ultimately seems to escape the director's control, there is no small amount of enjoyment in getting lost in its sexual-philosophical house of mirrors.
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press
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