20 Centimeters (2006)

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Imitating another person's already successful work does not automatically make yours the same... here we have a film that is an imitation Almodovar pic from about 1989.. a sort of musical version of WOMEN ON THE VERGE mixed with ideas from MY PRIVATE IDAHO and imagery from The UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG or the mid 60s Mediterranean musicals from Italy or even Greece (Aliki Vougyouklaki, all is forgiven)... 20 CENTERMETERS is actually a funny/charming idea in that it is about someone desperate who has narcolepsy and when asleep imagines big musical numbers... but that is the extent of the funny or genuinely attractive part. sadly, guess what, and yes no surprise, it is set in the world of street prostitutes, selfish squabbling misfits and shabby apartment blocks with miserable squalor. Why? This film could be more like CLUELESS for adults rather than obvious extensions of already grimy scenes copied from Almodovar. I wanted to like this film but I became tired of it and found the musical numbers, whilst slavishly amusing just became tiresome. The sexual content is far too explicit and the bathroom scenes while our 'leading actress' is alone and getting off on herself are truly disgusting. 20 Centimeters is a disappointment... and I never thought I would ever say that.

Ramón Salazar's directed this movie-with-music and I do not particularly like what he has done with it. The story is not that spectacular (transsexual wants operation to remove his penis) but very thin indeed so extra drama on the side is needed and added to fill a whole movie. Too many sidelines and extra, needless information is given. The switches to the musical scenes are not that brilliant -it's quite logic to have them when Marieta has her narcoleptic attack but there are a few out of the blue and they don't move me. Could be the singing and dancing of Leading Lady Mónica Cervera -I am not that much impressed with her at all. Of course we're spoiled after The Singing Detective and -more recent- Moulin Rouge or Chicago. It's a must for a director to follow one's own path but one can't behave like those movies were never made! The movie is not bizarre enough for me -but the subject should be. The choices Salazar made are a bit on the safe side and they miss a bizarre kind of fantasy.The good bits: Chevi Muraday made very nice choreography's. Suggestive or just festive: very nice work indeed. Pleased to see that dancers can act as Pablo Puyol proves. Without any shamelessness at all he acts and dances his way through this movie. Bravo. The bests scenes are for the lady's at Marieta's apartment! Wonderful characters indeed played by Spain's finest actresses. Brava. I'm sorry but I can't find the name of the elderly actress who plays Marieta's hormone-shot-giving friend. During her telephone conversation we can see a photograph of her at young age -and that scene is just a little miracle -it moved me to tears. Bravo Salazar. Could have lasted longer.Pieter

this story of a narcoleptic transvestite hooker with more than an angry inch has the audacity to open with a musical number from the Spanish classic TOMBOLA. It's stands the Spanish musical on it's head better than even Almodovar has managed before.For those familiar with Spanish cinema from the Franco era, this is a worthy companion piece to BAD EDUCATION. The two films together are the equivalent of a stealth attack on SARITA MONTIEL, MARISOL and JOSELITO movies.For those unfamiliar, what remains is a camp satire of the MTV generation where style overcomes substance and drama is really black comedy no matter how tragic.Fine performances from a great cast, particularly Monica Cervera, who manages to be ugly and sexy at the same time and Pablo Puyol as the masculine stud who likes Marieta's eight inches a little too much.Worth seeing at once!

This is a completely fabulous movie. Imagine a Bollywood version of Transamerica directed by Pedro Almodovar from a script by Dennis Potter. Imagine taking LSD and going to a showing of Breakfast On Pluto which has had its IRA scenes replaced by scenes from Nights of Cabiria. This is perhaps not a date movie for the faint of heart but if genre-bending and gender-bending don't scare you, this movie is relentlessly, joyfully entertaining. There's Something About Mary all right, and it's eight inches long! The dance sequences are great; they had so much delicious stuff to look at all over the frame that I had decided that I didn't have a moment to spare for looking at the subtitles during them and was relieved when our heroine starting singing in English. Given the difficulties of foreign film distribution in this country, you may have to root around for this movie but once you find it it's a handful and a half!