Gracias, Pedro, for making my job harder

It can get confusing living in a world that’s becoming more and more polarized. Nothing makes that more clear than watching a Pedro Almodovar movie. For example, his latest film, “La Mala Educacion.”

Almodovar, for anyone who has seen any of his films, is gay. Furthermore, he makes films about people who, to put it simply, struggle with their ability to find love and happiness and often even meaning in their everyday lives. Quite often, as with “La Flor de mi Secreto” or “Todo Sobre mi Madre,” one of the major characters is either a drag queen or someone in the midst of an actual sex change.

In “La Mala Educacion,” one of the major characters is a young Spaniard named Ignacio – or, as he insists, Angel ( Gael Garcia Bernal ) – who reunites with an old school friend named Enrique ( Fele Martinez ). Angel has a proposal: that Enrique make a film out of a story that he has written about, at least in part, their childhoods. Enrique isn’t interested – until he actually reads the story and recognizes the truth of his own past.

But truth is always relative in an Almodovar film. And before things are through, Enrique discovers that there are many things about Angel, not to mention himself, that just aren’t what they seemed at first glance. Playing fast and loose with time and place, Almodovar slowly reveals the whole story, leaving us to decide for ourselves who is in the right and who, ultimately, is the scoundrel. Or even if such distinctions can be made.

This isn’t a bad thesis: Trouble is, we have to go through a lot of blatant sex to get there, not to mention Catholic bashing, drug use and drag shows (which aren’t the cute types used in such films as “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” or “Connie and Carla”). Worse, each character ends up being as unlikable as the next.

So how does this relate to the country’s polarization? Well, “La Mala Educacion” is a film that clearly won’t play well in so-called red states. At the same time, it’s likely to please only the bluest of those living in blue states. The rest of us are caught in between, arguing that Almodovar – arguably a great filmmaker – should, as an artist, be able to say and do what he pleases and yet trying to explain why, in many respects, “La Mala Educacion” is, in the end, an artistic failure.

Of course, that’s life in 21-century America: If do your best to see both sides, you end up getting insulted by both extremes.