Reception
High Heels, Almodóvar's ninth film, was co-produced by El Deseo and Ciby 2000 and was released in Spain in October 1991. It was enormously successful in Spain. By the end of 1991, it had attracted an audience of more than 1.5 million, and eventually it came second in terms of box-office takings to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown among Almodóvar's films released up to that point.
The reaction of Spanish critics to the film was, on the whole, hostile. Antonio Castro, writing in Dirigido por, felt that: Almodóvar's desire to create a more straightforward narrative had merely led to a greater loss of vigor. Angel Fernandez Santos in El País, concluded that: in comparison with Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, which he regarded as an Everest, High Heels was a mere hill. And in Expansión Eduardo Torres Dulce was firmly of the opinion that: Almodóvar had had his day. David Thomson, in Sight and Sound, concluded that in general High Heels did not measure up to much of Almodóvar's earlier work. For him the homage to the other films – including Autumn Sonata – is counter productive, for it merely suggests the inferiority of High Heels.
High Heels was very successful in Italy and reviews were both heartfelt and moving. In France the film was a huge success. The film did less well in other countries, such as Germany where Almodóvar's films have not been well understood. He commented "My films move very freely and to understand them one must simply allow one's intuition and sensibility free rein… I’ve never been asked so many irrational questions as in Germany ".
High Heels was less successful in the United States than many others of Almodóvar's films. Like Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels was especially attacked on moral grounds, notably by certain women's groups. Almodóvar also complained that Miramax, the distributor of the film in the U.S.A, did not understand the film and had no idea what to do with it.
The movie-review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes lists a 64% favorable rating on its "Tomatometer" (based on 11 reviews). The aggregator Metacritic lists a 51% favorable rating, (based on 12 published reviews). The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote that High Heels has no real mirth and not even enough energy to keep it lively. Critic Roger Ebert said that "Pedro Almodóvar's films are an acquired taste, and with High Heels I am at last beginning to acquire it."
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