The Flower of My Secret (Pedro Almodovar)

Almodovar's movies, to me, are either silly, forgettable pieces of fluff (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) or deeper, character-driven human comedies (All About My Mother). Fortunately, most of the fluff was early in his career, and he's deepened as an artist as he's aged. Sometimes maturation kills what's good in the artist, making him or her respectable (probably the worst thing an artist can be), but growing up has been good for Almodovar. He writes characters now instead of caricatures, and his films have a loose, free-wheeling ease that leave plenty of room for digressions and detours. The Flower of My Secret, the first break from his earlier style, retains the spirit of the sillier work, but is a lot more substantive. I guess it's a transitional film, but I think I like it more than any of his others.