It’s 1980, and film director Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) is looking for a movie project when a certain Ángel Andrade (played by Gael García Bernal, of Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amores Perros, and The Motorcycle Diaries) approaches him, revealing she is his boarding school buddy and first love, Ignacio. She has written a story called ‘The Visit’, about their time in school, as well as a fictionalised version of their reunion as adults. But things complicate further when Ángel, in this story, confronts Father Monolo, the priest who abused her as a boy, and threatens to publish a story also called ‘The Visit’.

Almodóvar has cited this semi-autobiographical drama as, “a story I had to get out of my system… I had been working on the screenplay for over 10 years”. His films re-envision telenovelas for the big screen, full of bright colours, twisted plots, and high intrigue. The personal nature of the material and the metafiction apparatus combine to make an utterly unique film - and one which many critics in 2004 called his best yet (and still do).