All About My Mother

Synopsis by Flixster

Manuela, a nurse and single mother in her late thirties must come to terms with the tragic loss of her only son, Esteban, when he is struck by a car. She never told Esteban who he was, "your father died long before you were born" was all she ever told him. In memory of her son--who's his father's namesake--Manuela leaves Madrid and goes to Barcelona in search of Esteban's father. However, the man that she left behind, eighteen years ago when she was pregnant, is now a transvestite named Lola. The search for a man with that name cannot be simple. And indeed it isn't.

My take

What touched me most about this movie is when the mother of the nun, Rosa (Penelope Cruz), who got pregnant and subsequently HIV-infected, asked herself what she'd done wrong with her daughter. She said that Rosa had been like an alien to her since her teenage years. That really struck a chord with me. Parenthood is all about learning as we go along. No one really created a fail-safe guide to parenthood.

A parent may do everything right but still have a failure of a child, or vice versa. Look at Manuela (Cecilia Roth). She raised her son as a single mother, juggling that with her job as a nurse (just like my mum), and yet she lost a aspiring writer son to a freak motor accident.

Parents have to do the best they can for their children, and the rest are in God's hands.

I loved this movie because it spoke of a mother's love and the disappointments she faces. This was true for both Manuela and Rosa's mum. They rose above their circumstances: Manuela's husband became a transvestite and left her and her son died. Rosa's mum saw her daughter get pregnant and HIV-positive, and had to bury her.

Yet, a mother's love carries on. It truly is the greatest love in the world.