A lover plays many roles, and one of them, for the most loving, is nurse. In his version of Sleeping Beauty, the great Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar imagines two couples: each woman in a coma, each man standing by, his ardor purified by her helplessness. Cynics may say this is how men want their women — beautiful, still, and silent — and that, for one of the men, devotion turns pretty quickly to deviation. But that’s to shortchange the grace and humor in this unpredictable, beautiful film. It imagines a world where love can be both obsessive and selfless, and where the common phrase “I care for you” can express a sacred mission.
