All About My Mother 2021

Manuela is an Argentine nurse who oversees donor organ transplants at a busy Madrid hospital, juggling her demanding work with life as a single mother to Esteban, a thoughtful teenager who dreams of becoming a writer. On Esteban’s 17th birthday, tragedy strikes when he is hit by a car while pursuing his idol, the actress Huma Rojo, after a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire in which Huma plays Blanche DuBois. In the wake of his death, Manuela makes the difficult choice to donate Esteban’s heart to a recipient in A Coruña, a decision that sets her on a road of discovery and secrecy. After tracking down the man who received the heart, she resigns and travels to Barcelona, determined to locate Esteban’s other mother, Lola, a transgender woman whom she had kept hidden from her son—just as she had never told Lola about Esteban.

In Barcelona, Manuela reconnects with Agrado, a warm and witty transgender sex worker who warmly welcomes her back into a circle of friends and confidants. Her path also crosses with Huma, along with Nina Cruz, Huma’s co-star and lover who struggles with heroin addiction, and Rosa, a young nun who is HIV-positive and works in a shelter for battered sex workers while carrying Lola’s child. Manuela’s life becomes intertwined with theirs as she steps into roles she hadn’t anticipated: caring for Rosa during her pregnancy, serving as Huma’s personal assistant, and even stepping in as an understudy for Nina during one of her drug-fueled crises. The city’s energy and the troupe’s fragile bonds push Manuela to navigate love, loss, and responsibility in fresh, difficult ways.

On the way to the hospital, Rosa asks a taxi to pause at a park, where she spots her father’s dog Sapic and then encounters her father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s and does not recognize her. Sapic, however, greets her with a familiar memory. Rosa’s death comes during childbirth—a healthy boy is born, but the moment also seals a new reality for Manuela. At Rosa’s funeral, she finally reunites with Lola, who has grown older and is now dying from AIDS, revealing how deeply she longed for a child of her own. Manuela shares the news of their shared son Esteban and the long-ago accident that claimed his life, and she decides to take Rosa’s baby boy into her care, adopting him as Esteban and bringing him to live with Rosa’s parents. The exchange is complicated: Rosa’s father cannot fathom who Manuela is, and Rosa’s mother introduces her simply as the new cook living in the house with her grandson.

Before long, Manuela introduces Esteban to Lola, presenting her with a photograph that links their lives across time. Rosa’s mother confronts Manuela about exposing the baby to strangers, depth-testing the limits of family, memory, and secrecy. Manuela explains that Lola is Esteban’s other parent, a revelation that shocks Rosa’s mother and fuels her fears about HIV and the future. Unable to stay at Rosa’s home any longer, Manuela flees back to Madrid with Esteban, and she writes a letter to Huma and Agrado, apologizing once again for not saying goodbye as she once did years earlier.

Two years pass, and Manuela returns to Barcelona with Esteban, who remains healthy and AIDS-free. At an AIDS convention, she reunites with Huma and Agrado, who now run a stage show together, and she shares that she plans to return to live with Esteban’s grandparents. When she asks about Nina, Agrado reveals that Nina and Huma parted ways, Nina returned to her hometown, married, and started a family of her own. In this evolving tapestry of friendships, motherhood, and the many forms love can take, Manuela finds a way to hold her chosen family close while continuing to live with the consequences of past choices.