In the hands of a less capable director than Almodavar, the crime committed by one of the leading characters could backfire in a welter of accusations of bad taste.

Without going into detail, it's the type of despicable act that would have the good people of Portsmouth out on the streets, burning effigies and clamouring for a return to the death penalty.

Yet the Spanish director shows his consummate skill in making the guilty man not merely sympathetic but touchingly attractive in a way sex offenders never are.

Indeed, Almodovar's manipulation is so assured and disingenous that you find youself feeling you've been conned long after you've left the cinema.

The movie begins with two men - strangers to one another - sitting together in a Madrid theatre watching an over-wrought spectacle played to the accompaniment of Purcell's The Fairy Queen.

Marco (Grandinetti), an Argentinian travel writer in his early forties, is moved to tears while Benigno (Camara) is non-plussed but too reserved to say anything.

The two next meet at El Bosque private clinic, where Benigno cares for comatose patients - particularly beautiful ballet student Alicia (Watling).

Marco's there because his girlfriend - female bullfighter Lydia (Flores) - has been plunged into a coma after being gored out in the ring.

While Marco mourns his silent lover, Benigno regards the moments spent with Alicia - styling her hair and pushing back her cuticles - as the best years of his life.

"Talk to her," Benigno urges him... and from that moment on, an unlikely friendship is forged between the two men, which will lead to the most unlikely of destinies.

Ostensibly a look at loneliness and friendship, this doesn't stop Almodovar disappearing on some surreal flights of fancy - make what you will of the seven- minute segment, The Shrinking Lover, where a reduced romeo clambers over the body of a reclining female.

Like an arthouse Spielberg, Almodovar belongs to that select band of film-makers who can attract an audience just because his name's on it. However, this preaches to the converted.

Tim Evans