¶ … Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar often presents his themes in a satiric and comic framework emphasizing certain melodramatic and exaggerated elements. His film Talk to Her (2002) is not as darkly comedic or as exaggerated as some of his films, but he uses the various elements of film to heighten the odd nature of his characters and to illuminate their inner states on the basis of external action, sets, and camerawork. A primary mental state for these characters is that of audience, for life to a great degree is a spectator sport at which they are better as observers than participants. The film maintains a certain theatricality throughout, beginning with the opening shot, which is revealed as a curtain is drawn back as if for a stage play. Indeed, the first thing seen in the film is a stage play, a very odd interaction at which the main character is seated in the audience. The film ends in the theater once more, and the sense of life as a theater piece infuses the film. Two men are watching the performance, Marco and Benigno. They do not know each other, but they will become friends later and will be important to each other, serving as complements to one another.

The image created by the dance piece in the opening is also important, for it is a dance number in which two females are writhing on stage in a rather freewheeling manner as two men move chairs and tables out of the way to allow them to continue without getting hurt. This create an image that characterizes the film as...

These two men meet in a hospital where Marco's girl friend, a female bullfighter, lies in a coma after having been gored, while Benigno is a male nurse who takes care of a dancer who is also in a coma after an accident. The situation is somewhat contrived, and the two men meet and become friends, having in common the fact that they are caring for women who cannot speak or relate to them in any way. Marco's girl friend indeed was about to break up with him, as he learns, while Benigno is caring for a woman who does not know him at all.
Later, after the dancer wakes from her coma, Marco observes her from Benigno's old apartment as if watching a performance, seeing her across the street in her dance studio. The men are always watching the women, and often the women are unaware of being watched. When the men do manage to meet and communicate with a woman, the woman is clearly in charge. This is evident in Marco's relationship with the bullfighter, and it is repeated in a different way when Marco pursues the dancer. Benigno's experience with women is also subservient, and more than this, the fact that the only way he can relate to a woman is if she is in a coma adds to the sense of male helplessness…