''Bad Education'' ( es, link=no, La mala educación, also meaning 'bad manners') is a 2004 Spanish

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

written and directed by

Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narr ...

. Starring

Gael García Bernal Gael García Bernal (; born 30 November 1978) is a Mexican actor and producer. He is best known for his performances in the films '' Bad Education'', '' The Motorcycle Diaries'', '' Amores perros'', ''Y tu mamá también'', ''Babel'', '' Coco'', ...

Fele Martínez Fele Martínez (born Rafael Martínez; 22 February 1975) is a Goya Award-winning Spanish actor. Early years Martínez was born in Alicante, Spain. A product of the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático in Madrid, he began to act and direct theater ...

Daniel Giménez Cacho Daniel Giménez Cacho (born May 15, 1961) is a Spanish-born Mexican actor and Ariel award winner, best known for portraying Tito the Coroner in ''Cronos'' (1993) and ''We Are What We Are'' (2010). Career He starred in several Mexican films ...

Lluís Homar Lluís Homar i Toboso (born 20 April 1957) is a Spanish actor and theater director from Barcelona. He is best known for his roles in Pedro Almodóvar's '' Bad Education'' (2004) and ''Broken Embraces'' (2009), in Emilio Aragón's '' Paper Birds' ...

and Francisco Boira, the film focuses on two reunited childhood friends and lovers caught up in a stylised

murder mystery Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

. Along with

metafiction Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story ...

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

transsexuality Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignment ...

and drug use are also important themes and devices in the plot. The film received an

NC-17 The Motion Picture Association film rating system is used in the United States and its territories to rate a motion picture's suitability for certain audiences based on its content. The system and the ratings applied to individual motion pictures ...

rating in the United States for a depiction of homosexual sex. The film was released on 19 March 2004 in Spain and 10 September 2004 in Mexico. It was also screened at many international film festivals such as Cannes, New York, Moscow and Toronto before its US release on 19 November 2004. The film received critical acclaim, and was seen as a return to Almodovar's dark stage, placing it alongside films such as ''

Matador A bullfighter (or matador) is a performer in the activity of bullfighting. ''Torero'' () or ''toureiro'' (), both from Latin ''taurarius'', are the Spanish and Portuguese words for bullfighter and describe all the performers in the activit ...

'' (1986) and ''

Law of Desire ''Law of Desire'' ( es, link=no, La ley del deseo) is a 1987 Spanish comedy thriller film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Eusebio Poncela as Pablo, Carmen Maura as Tina and Antonio Banderas as Antonio. It was the first film A ...

'' (1987).

Plot

In 1980 Madrid, young film director Enrique Goded is looking for his next project when he receives the unexpected visit of an actor looking for work. The actor claims to be Enrique's boarding school friend and first love, Ignacio Rodriguez. Ignacio, who is now using the name Ángel Andrade, has brought a short story titled "The Visit", hoping that Enrique would be interested in making a film out of it and give her the starring role. Enrique is intrigued since "The Visit" describes their time together at the Catholic

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

and it also includes a fictionalized account of their reunion many years later as adults. "The Visit" is set in 1977. It tells the story of a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

drag queen A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...

with the stage name Zahara, whose birth name is Ignacio. Zahara plans to rob a drunken admirer but discovers that the man is her boyhood lover Enrique. Next she visits her old school and confronts Father Manolo, who abused her when she was a boy. She demands one million pesetas from him in exchange for halting publication of her story "The Visit". The story is set in a Catholic boarding school for boys in 1964. At the school, Ignacio, a young boy with a beautiful singing voice, is the object of lust of Father Manolo, the

school principal A head master, head instructor, bureaucrat, headmistress, head, chancellor, principal or school director (sometimes another title is used) is the teacher, staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school ...

and literature teacher. Ignacio falls in love with a young Enrique, and the two go the local cinema and grope each other. Manolo discovers them together that night. Although Ignacio allows Manolo to molest him in exchange for not punishing Enrique, he expels him nonetheless. Enrique wants to

adapt ADAPT (formerly American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) is a United States grassroots disability rights organization with chapters in 30 states and Washington, D.C. They use nonviolent direct action in order to bring about disability just ...

the story but balks at Ángel's condition to be cast as Zahara, feeling that the Ignacio whom he loved and the Ignacio of today are totally different people. He drives to see Ignacio's mother in

Ortigueira Ortigueira is a seaport and municipality in the province of A Coruña (province), A Coruña the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain, Galicia in northwestern Spain. It belongs to the Comarcas of Galicia, comarca of Ortegal. It is located on th ...

, Galicia and learns that the real Ignacio has been dead for four years and that the man who came to his office is actually Ignacio's younger brother, Juan. Enrique's interest is piqued, and he decides to do the film with Juan in the role of Ignacio to find out what drives Juan. Enrique and Ángel start a relationship, and Enrique revises the script so that it ends with Father Manolo, whom Ignacio was trying to blackmail to get money for

sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...

, having Ignacio murdered. When the scene is shot, Ángel breaks out in tears unexpectedly. The film set is visited by Manuel Berenguer, who is the real Father Manolo, who has resigned from Church duty. Berenguer confesses to Enrique that the new ending of the film is not far from the truth: the real Ignacio blackmailed Berenguer, who somehow managed to scratch together the money but also took an interest in Ignacio's younger brother, Juan. Juan and Manolo started a relationship and after a while realized they both wanted to see Ignacio dead. Juan scored some very pure

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...

, so that his brother would die by

overdose A drug overdose (overdose or OD) is the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities much greater than are recommended.

after shooting up. After the crime, the relationship disintegrates; Berenguer wants to continue the relationship with Juan, but Juan is uninterested. Berenguer claims that he will never let Juan go, and Juan threatens to kill him if Berenguer continues to pursue him. Berenguer attempts to blackmail Juan for his part in the murder of Ignacio. Enrique is shocked and not at all interested in Juan's weak vindications for what he did to his brother. Finally, before he leaves, Juan gives Enrique a piece of paper: a letter to Enrique that Ignacio was in the middle of typing when he died reading "I think I have succeeded..." An

epilogue An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the w ...

states that after the release of the film Juan and Enrique both achieved great success, although Juan was later relegated to television acting after his career declined in the 1990s and killed Berenguer in a

hit-and-run In traffic laws, a hit and run or a hit-and-run is the act of causing a traffic collision and not stopping afterwards. It is considered a supplemental crime in most jurisdictions. Additional obligation In many jurisdictions, there may be an ...

because of his continued blackmailing of him.

Cast

Production

García Bernal was required to display a convincing

Castilian Spanish In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish langua ...

accent before being cast. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reporter Lynn Hirschberg stated that Bernal had a falling out with Almodovar over the film's content; Bernal denied that assertion. Bernal and Almodóvar had different ideas on the type of 'inner transvestite' in terms of Bernal's performance. According to Almodóvar, he worked on the screenplay for over 10 years.

Release

The film was theatrically released in Spain on 19 March 2004. It opened in the 57th Cannes Film Festival in May 2004, the first Spanish film to do so.

Box office

The film opened theatrically in the United States on 19 November 2004 in three venues, earning $147,370 in its opening weekend, ranking number 30 in the domestic box office. At the end of its North American theatrical run (its widest release being in 106 venues), the film had grossed $5,211,842 in the United States and Canada, and $35,062,088 overseas ($7,356,224 in its home country of Spain), making $40,273,930 worldwide.

Critical reception

The film received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 88% of 146 reviews were positive, with an average rating of 7.60/10. The site's consensus states: "A layered, wonderfully-acted, and passionate drama." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has an 81 out of 100 rating, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Ann Hornaday from ''The Washington Post'' wrote, "To watch ''Bad Education'' is to revel, along with Almodóvar, in the power of cinema to take us on journeys of breathtaking mystery and dimension and beauty." Marjorie Baumgarten from the ''Austin Chronicle'' wrote "With ''Bad Education'', the great Almodóvar delivers the finest movie of his career."

Peter Travers Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...

from ''Rolling Stone'' wrote "A rapturous masterwork."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film three and a half stars out of four writing "Pedro Almodovar's new movie is like an ingenious toy that is a joy to behold, until you take it apart to see what makes it work, and then it never works again. While you're watching it, you don't realize how confused you are, because it either makes sense from moment to moment or, when it doesn't, you're distracted by the sex. Life is like that."

Accolades

, - , rowspan = "6" align = "center" , 2005 , rowspan = "4" , 19th Goya Awards , , colspan = "2" ,

Best Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

, , , , rowspan = "4" , , - ,

Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to: Film awards * AACTA Award for Best Direction * Academy Award for Best Director * BA ...

, , Pedro Almodóvar , , , - , Best Art Direction , , Antxón Gómez , , , - , Best Production Supervision , , Esther García , , , - , rowspan = "2" , 14th Actors and Actresses Union Awards , , Best Film Actor in a Leading Role , , Gael García Bernal , , , , rowspan = "2" , , - , Best Film Actor in a Minor Role , , Javier Cámara , ,

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bad Education 2004 films 2004 independent films 2004 LGBT-related films 2000s coming-of-age drama films 2000s Spanish-language films 2000s Spanish films 2004 crime drama films 2000s mystery drama films Films set in boarding schools Films about actors Films about child sexual abuse Films about pedophilia Films about films Films about sexual repression Homophobia in fiction Films about violence against LGBT people Films about trans women Films about writers Films directed by Pedro Almodóvar Films produced by Agustín Almodóvar Films scored by Alberto Iglesias Films set in 1964 Films set in 1977 Films set in 1980 Films set in Madrid Films shot in Madrid Films set in Galicia (Spain) Gay-related films Latin-language films LGBT-related coming-of-age films LGBT-related drama films Media coverage of Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals Murder mystery films Neo-noir Spanish coming-of-age films Spanish crime drama films Spanish independent films Spanish LGBT-related films Spanish mystery drama films El Deseo films