Law of Desire takes place in a feverish universe in which life is theater, and to truly live is to overact. Pedro Almodóvar, the prolific writer-director, takes as his protagonist a prolific writer-director, Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) and through him explores the possibilities of utter desire-desire that is at once a possession, and the wish to possess. Pablo is obsessed with a young lover, Juan, who can't be had; but it is Antonio, a one-night-stand replacement for Juan, who teaches Pablo about true obsession when he wakes up the morning after, possessed and possessive. The most florid of overactors-and the one with the most to teach the relatively mild-mannered Pablo-is the actress Tina, Pablo's sister, who was his brother until an Oedipal flip flop made him want to be a girl, who wants nothing to do with men. Tina is the magnificent creation of the huskily beautiful Carmen Maura (from What Have I Done to Deserve This?). Pauline Kael writes, "Almodóvar's tone is not like anyone else's; the film has the exaggerated plot of an absurdist Hollywood romance... This director manages to joke about the self-dramatizing that can go on at the movies, and at the same time reactivate it. The film is festive. It doesn't disguise its narcissism; it turns it into bright-colored tragicomedy."