Review of Kika (1993) by Eric B — 11 Oct 2012

A mixed success, "Kika" juggles an erratic batch of characters and barely keeps its balls in the air. It's so confused that even the central role is disputable -- is it Kika or her boyfriend Ramon? Perhaps writer/director Pedro Almodovar decided putting Kika's name in the title was a necessary clarification.

Kika is an effervescent makeup artist who pretties up the dead for funerals. She is summoned to work on the recently departed Ramon ("He'll turn green soon...get rid of the pallor before we take him to the morgue") but, surprise! He's merely having a cataleptic seizure. After he revives, he and Kika begin living together. But she's also having a casual affair with his stepfather Nicholas. Who is suspected of killing Ramon's mother years ago, even though her death was ruled a suicide. Nicholas is also pursued by Andrea, a scar-faced tabloid reporter who dresses like a dominatrix and wears a ridiculous helmet rigged with a TV camera. To complicate matters, she is his ex-girlfriend and also Ramon's ex-psychologist. Meanwhile, Kika and Ramon have a hatchet-faced maid whose brother is a former porn actor newly escaped from jail.

Wow.

Not even Almodovar can give this mess a coherent dramatic shape, though he gives himself a break by writing the maid and her brother out of the story early (but not before using the latter for what could be the funniest rape scene in film history). Veronica Forque and Victoria Abril offer gutsy, uninhibited performances as the brazen Kika and Andrea, and Peter Coyote (Nicholas) gives Americans a familiar face to follow.