What Have I Done to Deserve This?

If ''What Have I done to Deserve This?'' is a feminist tract, it is the wittiest and most endearing one ever created. It is quite simply a small masterpiece.

Director Pedro Almodovar spins a dark tale of living in cramped quarters, and because he gets a richly shaded performance from Carmen Maura (as Gloria), his story is actually rather tender, in its own cruel fashion. [12 Jul 1985, p.D7]

The notion that life is one big joke certainly isn't new. But unlike a lot of would-be maniacs, Almodovar has the guts to go all the way; and his over-the-cliff zeal gives "What Did I Do to Deserve This?" a much funnier and less nasty tone than any recent American comedy that comes to mind. [26 Jun 1985, p.5C]

Almodovar’s matter-of-factness makes his film so funny.

You'll probably never see a woozier treatment of the breakdown of the family and the decay of the society.

Pedro Almodovar’s 1985 Spanish film taps into 80s mainstream American humor, with its emphasis on comic underreaction to bizarre events and disconnected, skitlike structure.

An enormously winning, wilfully wicked treat.