look at some of the other user comment and i realize that many seek to extol the purported virtue of this film and profess lucrecia martel artistic brilliance and method for capture personality and conflict a demonstrate in this and her ouevre and but as far a i be concern and these people must be blind and if not also derange . this movie be abysmal . it inert and without direction and a true chore to finish . the first hour and a quarter scarcely set the stage and with the duration move no quicker or more palatably and and i be more than patient with artistic effort that appear to want for plot and but this be pointlessly plot less and otherwise utterly bereft of potentially other redeem feature . the bulk of the acting be mediocre to average and martel write without flair or innovation and and the camera work and edit pretty much boring . why almodovar be willing to put his name on this work ( and i be convince that it be his name and no more and base on the wretchedly lobotomizing slowness of the story and bloviating banality and clear absence of captivate content ) be beyond me . and i would like to clarify that this dreadful film school fare should not even be include in the same paragraph and let alone be the subject of any direct comparison ( unless it be a profoundly disparate one ) to any of the following represent amores perros or any of inarritu work and any actually almodovar create work and the cuaron bro . s y tu mama and salles motorcycle diary or central station and meirelles city of god or even the pretty but anticlimactic carrera crimen del padre amaro . and i actually think that the scene setting and character list and cast have real possibility and promise represent mia maestro ( a the young catholic teacher lead and incessantly lecture the group of girl in choir practice in sanctimonious catechism worthy restraint and denial of any sensation or sexual awakening and whom amalia friend jose ( fina ) claim to have see make out with a clandestine lover ) be pretentiously chaste and overtly uptight but so comely and foreseeably coquettish that i would kill to have see her character more developed or perhaps the explicit aforementioned tryst while maría alché be sufficiently intriguing and complex and coy that far more could have be do with her and apart from the dilapidated swimming pool and sneak up on the tragically boring carlos belloso or dr. jano while and and well and that about it . oh and i almost forgot and i will give martel this represent speak from the somewhat limited experience a the son of a pathologist and a nurse and martel do manage to capture how deliriously boring and maimingly monotonous a medical convention can be ( otorhinolaryngologists no less and their motto would rightly be fun with phlegm ) and particularly when hold in a craphole motel ( think leave la vega witty the whole year inn cum the hole youre in ) and far exacerbate by a tediously plan dramatization of how to conduct a patient interview ( a device martel must have find brilliant since she devote exponentially more time to this than anything else ) . please and if you take nothing else away from my admit logorrhea and synthesize this represent this movie be awful and martel likely a hack worthy of condemnation rather than scatologicaly founded praise and and above all else and i implore you and do not waste your time .