Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

How are Spanish speaking women interactions with men within the same culture? Are the feelings over reacted in the film?

I see the women in this film interacting with men very similar to the way women in the United States do. I am sure there are many of my classmates that will disagree with me but here is why I think this. Pepa was in a relationship that was one sided, and also found out some disturbing news which we found out later was the news that she was pregnant. The combination of the two circumstances made her lose control and react in the manner in which she did. She loved Ivan and needed desperately to talk with him and let him know what she had found out at the doctors office. Women in the United States also end up in relationships with men that are unavailable to them completely, I do not understand this concept of wanting a married man but it happens around us all the time. John Kerry, Tiger Woods, Jesse James, I could go on and on but I think you get the idea. Pepa's friend Candela was attracted to the bad boy and has the personality where she falls in love with whomever she is with. She of course falls in love with the worst of the worst and gets herself into trouble. Again we see this type of behavior in women in the United States, they think they are in love and end up doing things that they know is wrong, just look at the women who followed Charles Manson. Next we have the strong dominating personality of Marisa, Carlos' fiancee. He is what I would call a "whipped puppy", she definitely wears the pants in that relationship. This is also a trait that we see in some women in the United States, it may be my perception but I see this trait in Hillary Clinton and her relationship with past President Bill Clinton. Finally we see Lucia and how the lost love of her life drove her insane, all she wanted to do was be loved. I do think that for the films purpose the feelings of these women were over reacted but not unrealistic. Women have tried and succeeded in committing suicide over a man, women have also done some pretty crazing things in the name of love.

Do you find differences between women in the film and today's American women? What could have been different in the film if the context was the United States.

I have already discussed some of this in my answer above. I think that we can see women in the United States reacting in the same manner as these women. Women fall in love to me easier than men (remember this is my opinion). Men can have a relationship with a women for simple pleasure but I think that women attach emotions to it. That is why we see women react in the same manner as Pepa. Once she found out that Ivan did not really love her she was devastated and her first reaction was to kill herself, then she decided that if she could just talk to him and see him that she could make him stay and love her. It took 48 hours and a reality check for her to realize that he was not worth it. When I was going through nursing school and doing my psych. rotation I had a couple of young girls that were in the hospital because they had tried to kill themselves over men. What I wanted to tell them was to snap out of it, no man is worth taking your own life, of course I couldn't but I wanted too! I also have to admit that I have done some stupid things in the name of love.

My own impression about the film's plot.

I thought the film was OK, I did not think that it was necessarily a comedy though until the final scenes. I thought it was based on a series on coincidences that drove these characters together. At the center of these coincidences was love or should I say the lack of love. The final scene where Ivan's wife tried to kill him showed me a character that will never know true love. He was going away with one women and in a flash he was ready to leave her and go back to Pepa. What a loser!

Do you think there is a difference among women from Spanish America and women from Spanish Europe?

I think there is a difference because I think that there differences in any culture. These differences come in many ways from social status, how women talk to each other, how they interact with men, and what they value in life. In some circumstances women value their status in life over anything else but in other cultures family and friends are most important.