Mad Love

Ayala gives Joan a fiery, full-blooded passion and Aranda challenges Pedro Almodovar in the arena of self-destructive love, obsessive passion and sweaty cinematic sex. It's the lustiest costume drama in years.

A bodice-ripper for intellectuals.

Star Pilar Lopez de Ayala is such a feisty, striking presence, and the film so conventional in its depiction of a jealous and insatiable love, that it is hard to see Juana as anything other than a typical soap opera heroine.

de Ayala is required to supply too much of the energy in a film that is, overall, far too staid for its subject matter.

Despite being a pretty film with some good performances, it's hard to sympathize with a character that won't help herself. More proof, if we need it, that mixing sex and politics only leads to trouble.

Like an ''Afterschool Special'' with costumes by Gianni Versace, Mad Love looks better than it feels.

Adroit but finally a trifle flat, Mad Love doesn't galvanize its outrage the way, say, Jane Campion might have done, but at least it possesses some.