The Flower of My Secret

The Flower of My Secret () is a 1995 drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It was selected as the Spanish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 68th Academy Awards, but it was not selected as one of the final five nominees. Plot Leocadia "Leo" Macías, missing her husband, Paco, a NATO military official who is in Brussels for reasons related to the Bosnian War, puts on a pair of boots he gave her, but they are too tight, and she cannot get them off. Unable to contact her housekeeper, she tracks down her best friend, Betty, who removes the boots. Betty later encourages Leo, who is a writer, to contact Betty's friend Ángel, an editor at El País, and ask for a job writing about literature as a distraction. Ángel and Leo get along well, but when he asks her to review a new anthology of works by Amanda Gris, a popular writer of romance novels, she refuses and leaves his office. Ángel calls Leo to tell her he has read the pieces she gave him as examples of her writing and wants to publish one of her essays. Overjoyed, she wants to talk to Paco, but her call wakes him up and he accuses her of being drunk before she can relay her news. Leo meets with her publishers to discuss her newest manuscript. They tell her it is unsuitably dark for an Amanda Gris novel and remind her that she is contractually obliged to write five romance novels each year with happy endings and without any social conscience, to be published pseudonymously, at Leo's request. The publishers threaten to sue her for breach of contract if she does not submit something in the required style, but she says she cannot write like that anymore. Frustrated, Leo writes an article belittling Amanda Gris and submits it to Ángel, who publishes it.