MovieChat Forums > Todo sobre mi madre (2000) Discussion > Son and mother relationship at the begin...

Son and mother relationship at the beginning

posted 15 years ago by JohnM_99
38 replies | jump to latest

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but did anybody find the overall tone of conversations between the son and the mother at the start of the movie a bit "creepy"? If I saw these scenes without knowing they were son and mother, I would've thought they were lovers. Maybe this is a cultural difference between where I grew up (Japan/US) and Spain, but I would never, ever talk to my mom the way he does (i.e. him being overly serious and abundantly generous in reassuring her every-time she shows a bit of insecurities, him pleading to see her theater works and her workplace despite of her being coy (ewww), etc).

I don't know, if he was visiting her after a long time away from home (such as coming back home from his college year) and they miss each other so much, maaaaaybe I could understand him and her being like that somewhat (well, not really). I mean, if he's been living with his mother all his life, him being so suddenly and ardently curious about his mom's entire life just doesn't make any sense to me (surely he must've been to her workplace BEFORE???)

Could people personally relate to the overall tone of their relationship at the beginning? I couldn't.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] dmiel2010 13 years ago

I know it has been a long time since you posted this comment but because i did not see anyone mention this before here it goes:
1) The reason he talks to his mom that way it's because he is the only child and the only man in the house, that has made him mature faster and gave him the opportunity to speak to his mom as her equal, even if the mother still sees him as her "baby".
2) the reason he is so interested on his mom now it's because he is writing a story about her. He knows that he is older and that now he gets to ask the questions that as child he couldn't ask or she wouldn't answer.
At the end of the movie we find out a little bit about what he was writing about her and he mentions that he knows that for his mother talk about the past is very hard, so he is writing the story to find out about his father and the other things that his mother couln't tell him.
Hope it makes sense.

[–] rockingkvs 13 years ago

Yes the first scene with mother and son was little bit odd. May be he was close to her because he never had father. But the son's character was bit complex and left uncompleted because of his death.
To be honest I didn't find a single normal male character in this movie.
Anyways its a good movie with good acting.

[–] andromache3 13 years ago

I understand the cultural difference issue but some of the comments made on this board are creepy, not the relationship between the mother and the son. If people are so bothered by the relationship maybe it's because of their own issues.

"When we make mistakes, it's evil. When God makes mistakes, it's nature."

[–] BBogus 12 years ago

It's culture. Hispanic men are mommy boys.

[–] andyk69 12 years ago

I was kind of shock to see the opinions on this thread, I am a fan of this movie as many of my friends, and to go straight to the point, we didn't find any incest or odipus signs between the mother and son relationship. Is natural for most latin/hispanic cultures to have very close family bonds, specially within a mother and son.
So, yes, is a cultural thing.

[–] Alexandrexx 11 years ago

So sad you citizens of the USA have totally lost the sense of natural human communication.
This wouldn't even captivate an European's sense of "creepyness"

[–] Degree7 11 years ago

Is OP talking about the conversation about "needing a big dick to work the streets"?

That's not exactly an abnormal conversation topic for a teenager, especially an only child, and even the mother scolded him for it.

idiot.

Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to its awesomeness.

[–] prplayer 8 years ago

i also thought it was pretty out there, but that's what the whole movie was going for

so many movies, so little time

[–] Prismark10 8 years ago

I did not see it too strange. It is a kind of thing some teenagers do say to their parents.

It's that man again!!