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.
The take
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.
What stands out
The multiple plot twists with each new narrator.
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