Dark Habits

Almodóvar's third feature is slapdash, occasionally slow-moving, haphazardly plotted. That it's also wildly funny, bitchy, affecting and surreal is a tribute to his perennial warmth and wit.

This black comedy or light melodrama... does not go for belly laughs, but keeps you smiling at the innocence of the sinful nuns, as they appealingly carry on their appalling practices.

The jokes are sometimes labored; still, Almodovar already had the disreputable sensuality that links him to early De Palma.

It doesn’t yield enough contrasts; the film maunders into a succession of flatly perverse jokes.