November has been melodrama month at the movies. First Todd Haynes brought us Far From Heaven, which he ought to have called Imitation of Imitation. Now comes Pedro Almodóvar with Talk to Her, so we can see the real thing.

When a film is as touching and true as Talk to Her, it deserves to be praised on its own. Nevertheless: I note that only one of these melodramas makes itself bigger than life through generosity, by giving its characters the boldness and color we'd all like to have. The other achieves grandeur by making life small: judging every character in advance, reducing every situation to a slogan--the sort of unexceptionably liberal slogan on which your average Democrat could run, and lose.

Of course, I'd be lying if I said that Haynes alone condescends to his characters. There's a woman in Almodóvar's new movie--a television talk-show host--whom the filmmaker demeans three times over. After being treated as a functionary, who exists solely to bring together the real characters, she's made to splutter and thrash, like a frog who's missed the lily pad. And for the third insult, she's given nothing better to croak than this platitude: "Talking about problems is the first step toward overcoming them."

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