There’s a cyclical tragedy at the heart of Bad Education, that starts with love, then continues in separation, and ends with hoping to redeem one’s self, and it would have felt repetitive if it wasn’t for the metafictional framing of Pedro Almodóvar. It boldly tackles the sexual abuse occurring in Catholic boarding schools, from which Almodóvar was educated under. It also explores it through a series of brilliant twists, as each reveal essentially repeats again and again, with each remix increasing the stakes, weaving a new layer to the love triangle, and exacerbating the consequences. Bad Education blends Enrique’s, and perhaps Almodóvar’s, life with fiction, with the brilliance and style Almodóvar is best known for.
Synopsis
Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 1960s. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three are followed through the next few decades, their reunion marking life and death.
Storyline
Madrid, 1980. Looking for his next project, struggling film director Enrique Goded is surprised by an unexpected visit from actor Angel Andrade, who claims to have been his first love Ignacio Rodriguez. Andrade has brought along a short story titled The Visit, inspired by their Catholic boarding school experience in the 1960s.
TLDR
It’s actually insane how layered this film is.
What stands out
The multiple plot twists with each new narrator.
