Bad Education

Bad Education (, also meaning 'bad manners') is a 2004 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lluís Homar and Francisco Boira, the film focuses on two reunited childhood friends and lovers caught up in a stylised murder mystery. Along with metafiction, sexual abuse by Catholic priests, transsexuality and drug use are also important themes and devices in the plot. The film received an NC-17 rating in the United States for a depiction of homosexual sex. The film was released on 19 March 2004 in Spain and 10 September 2004 in Mexico. It was also screened at many international film festivals such as Cannes, New York, Moscow and Toronto before its US release on 19 November 2004. The film received critical acclaim, and was seen as a return to Almodovar's dark stage, placing it alongside films such as Matador (1986) and Law of Desire (1987). Plot In 1980 Madrid, young film director Enrique Goded is looking for his next project when he receives the unexpected visit of an actor looking for work. The actor claims to be Enrique's boarding school friend and first love, Ignacio Rodriguez. Ignacio, who is now using the name Ángel Andrade, has brought a short story titled "The Visit", hoping that Enrique would be interested in making a film out of it and give him the starring role. Enrique is intrigued since "The Visit" describes their time together at the Catholic boarding school and it also includes a fictionalized account of their reunion many years later as adults. "The Visit" is set in 1977. It tells the story of a transgender drag queen with the stage name Zahara, whose birth name is Ignacio. Zahara plans to rob a drunken admirer but discovers that the man is her boyhood lover Enrique. Next she visits her old school and confronts Father Manolo, who abused her when she was a boy. She demands one million pesetas from him in exchange for halting publication of her story "The Visit". The story is set in a Catholic boarding school for boys in 1964. At the school, Ignacio, a young boy with a beautiful singing voice, is the object of lust of Father Manolo, the school principal and literature teacher. Ignacio falls in love with a young Enrique, and the two go the local cinema and grope each other. Manolo discovers them together that night. Although Ignacio allows Manolo to molest him in exchange for not punishing Enrique, he expels him nonetheless.