Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

I, the Worst of All (1990)

Director: María Luisa Bemberg

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Bemberg's dramatisation of the life of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 17th century Mexican writer, moves from an austere series of tableaux to a charged atmosphere of repression and calculating ambition. Flashbacks reveal Sister Juana's fatherless, impoverished and intellectually precocious childhood, and there's a suggestion that her decision to enter the convent was a tactical manoeuvre enabling her to pursue her studies and writing. When the archbishop later conspires to stop her work, she becomes embroiled in a counterplot to undermine his authority, with disastrous results. Serna's intense performance in the lead role is never allowed to dominate a plot built around internecine conflict, shifting loyalties, betrayals and individual acts of courage. The drama is progressively unsettling, particularly as the spiritual malaise becomes manifest in the horrific ravages of the plague.

Author: CM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: María Luisa Bemberg

Producer: Lita Stantic

Cast: Assumpta Serna, Dominique Sanda, Héctor Alterio, Lautaro Murúa, Alberto Segado, Franklin Caicedo, Graciela Araujo full cast

Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers

Duration: 105 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.