Contrived and self-important. The movie starts up with lazy, uncreative exposition in the form of a never-ending monologue by Spindola who hams it up like the best. This shows what will be a recurring theme in the movie, characters ceaselessly speechifying and reciting a inorganic speech written by a man who doesn't know how people really talk.
It's also quite disappointing that a movie with so much crass graphic nudity doesn't even manage to summon a fifth of the passion and eroticism any Almodovar film has, he didn't need to show one set of genitals to convey the raw sexuality of the characters. It's just laziness and shock where flair should be.
Alberto Estrella is the only who doesn't surrender fully to the director's mediocre vision and does the best with what he's given, but in the end it's not really enough.
