# Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios
**Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios** (released in English as *Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown*) is a 1988 Spanish comedy written and directed by [Pedro Almodóvar](https://www.edgepedia.org/pedro-almodovar), starring Carmen Maura as Pepa, a voice actress abandoned by her lover who spends a single frantic day trying to find him while her Madrid penthouse fills with eccentric visitors[1](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=16787&q=true) • [2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). It was the film that made Almodóvar an international name, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and a Venice screenwriting prize[3](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and year | Pedro Almodóvar, 1988; Spanish production, comedy, 90 minutes[1](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=16787&q=true) |
| Premiere | 23 March 1988 in Spain, where it was a box-office success[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml) |
| Spanish attendance | 3,348,520 spectators, with receipts of €7,022,322.06[1](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=16787&q=true) |
| Leading cast | Carmen Maura (Pepa), Fernando Guillén (Iván), Antonio Banderas (Carlos), Julieta Serrano (Lucía), María Barranco (Candela), Rossy de Palma (Marisa)[1](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=16787&q=true) • [4](https://www.justwatch.com/es/pelicula/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown) |
| Awards | 5 Goyas from 16 nominations, including Best Film and Best Actress; Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film; New York Film Critics Circle award in that category; Venice screenwriting prize[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml) • [3](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/) |
| Literary source | Freely inspired by Jean Cocteau's monologue *La voix humaine*[5](https://rim.univ-cotedazur.fr/items/show/3626) |
| US release | Distributed by Orion Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; grossed $5.2 million in the United States[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/women_on_the_verge_of_a_nervous_breakdown) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Pepa (Carmen Maura) and Iván (Fernando Guillén) are dubbing actors who voice the leads of *Johnny Guitar*; the film opens with them recording the western's famous dialogue[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). Iván, a habitual womanizer, breaks off their long relationship with a message on her answering machine asking her to pack a suitcase with his things[4](https://www.justwatch.com/es/pelicula/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown). Desperate to tell him something important that concerns them both, Pepa nearly overdoses on sleeping pills, burns her bed, and spends most of the film trying to track him down[7](https://www.sensacine.com/peliculas/pelicula-86046/).
Her penthouse fills with visitors as the day unravels: Iván's deranged ex-wife Lucía (Julieta Serrano), his son Carlos ([Antonio Banderas](https://www.edgepedia.org/antonio-banderas)), Carlos's girlfriend Marisa ([Rossy de Palma](https://www.edgepedia.org/rossy-de-palma)), and her friend Candela (María Barranco), who has become entangled with a Shiite terrorist cell[7](https://www.sensacine.com/peliculas/pelicula-86046/) • [6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/women_on_the_verge_of_a_nervous_breakdown). A pitcher of gazpacho spiked with sleeping pills becomes one of the film's most famous devices, and in one celebrated scene Pepa throws the answering machine out the window, where it lands on Iván's car[3](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/) • [8](https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/365678/0/mujeres/ataque/nervios/).
## Production and style
Almodóvar wrote the script freely inspired by [Jean Cocteau](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-cocteau)'s 1929 monologue *La voix humaine*, in which an abandoned woman waits anxiously for a telephone call from her lover; the connection is explicit, since Pepa spends half the film waiting for a call, and the telephone is nearly a character in the film[5](https://rim.univ-cotedazur.fr/items/show/3626) • [2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). The crew included Bernardo Bonezzi (music), José Luis Alcaine (cinematography), José Salcedo (editing), and Félix Murcia (sets)[5](https://rim.univ-cotedazur.fr/items/show/3626).
**A constructed, pop-art Madrid.** The film was shot almost entirely in a luxury penthouse in central Madrid, complete with a chicken coop, and Almodóvar wanted the sets, furniture, and clothes to look brand new, like a postcard with a hyperreal, almost phantasmagoric atmosphere[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). Red saturates the film, from fashion and decoration to the telephone and the gazpacho; the director has said the color always appears in his films, though he does not know why[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). Antonio Alvarado designed most of the wardrobe, including the coffee-pot-shaped earrings worn by María Barranco, which became an icon of Spanish design and gave the actress an allergic reaction during filming[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml) • [8](https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/365678/0/mujeres/ataque/nervios/).
The film marked a turn for a director who until then had been an independent, almost underground figure with movies such as *Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón* (1980), *¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto?* (1984), and *La ley del deseo* (1987)[9](https://www.movistarplus.es/cine/mujeres-al-borde-de-un-ataque-de-nervios/ficha?id=346488&tipo=E). It emerged from la Movida, the cultural explosion of post-Franco Spain, and channeled that anarchic energy into a screwball comedy with the precision of classic Hollywood[3](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/).
## Reception and awards
The film premiered on 23 March 1988 and was a box-office hit in Spain, displacing *La vaquilla* at the top[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). The ICAA film register records 3,348,520 Spanish spectators and receipts of €7,022,322.06[1](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=16787&q=true). In the United States, distributed by [Orion Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/orion-pictures) and [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer](https://www.edgepedia.org/metro-goldwyn-mayer), it grossed $5.2 million[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/women_on_the_verge_of_a_nervous_breakdown).
**Awards.** The film received 16 Goya nominations and won 5, including Best Film, Best Actress for Carmen Maura, and the Goya for the screenplay[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). María Barranco won the Goya for Best Supporting Actress for playing Candela, the role that opened the door to her career[10](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2026/01/22/maria-barranco-me-corri-viva-con-mi-primer-aplauso-cadena-ser/). Internationally it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won the New York Film Critics Circle award in that category, as well as a screenwriting prize in Venice[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml) • [3](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/). On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 94% Tomatometer from 34 reviews and an 89% audience score[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/women_on_the_verge_of_a_nervous_breakdown).
The film also changed the director's personal and professional relationships. After the shoot, Almodóvar and Carmen Maura broke off their collaboration for nearly two decades, not working together again until *Volver* (2006); Almodóvar attributed the rupture to how intensely he works with actors[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml) • [8](https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/365678/0/mujeres/ataque/nervios/).
## Legacy
The film became one of the most-seen of Almodóvar's movies and one of the most famous of Spanish cinema, with many of its lines entering everyday speech in Spain[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml). [Jane Fonda](https://www.edgepedia.org/jane-fonda) reportedly bought the rights for an American remake that was never made, but the story did reach Broadway as a musical starring Sherie Rene Scott and [Patti LuPone](https://www.edgepedia.org/patti-lupone), and Almodóvar has noted that *Mujeres al borde* has been staged as a musical or play in several places[2](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml) • [11](https://elpais.com/babelia/2026-10-24/leer-a-pedro-almodovar-el-escritor-es-egoista-por-naturaleza.html).
Scholarship has read the film as more than farce. A study by Ana María Sánchez-Arce, a researcher whose chapter appears in *The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar* (Manchester University Press), argues that the comedy's artificiality draws attention to gender constraints, that class and gender intersect in its characterization, and that Pepa's desperate search for Iván has a subtext in Spain's then legal and social context on single mothers and abortion; the same study criticizes a reception that focused on women's mental health rather than on the behavior of the male characters[12](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cinema-of-pedro-almodovar/pure-theatre-mujeres-al-borde-de-un-ataque-de-nervios/232190211A92893696FC5A068FE48ABC). Its blend of melodrama and comedy, and its focus on female experience, have influenced filmmakers well beyond Spain[3](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/).
## References
1. [MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS, ICAA Catálogo de Películas](https://infoicaa.mcu.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=16787&q=true)
2. ['Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios': secretos de la película más famosa de Pedro Almodóvar, RTVE (23 March 2023)](https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20230323/mujeres-borde-ataque-nervios-resumen-almodovar-netflix/2301460.shtml)
3. [Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, European Screen](https://europeanscreen.com/titles/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown/)
4. [Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988), JustWatch España](https://www.justwatch.com/es/pelicula/women-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown)
5. [Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, RIM, Université Côte d'Azur](https://rim.univ-cotedazur.fr/items/show/3626)
6. [Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/women_on_the_verge_of_a_nervous_breakdown)
7. [Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988), SensaCine](https://www.sensacine.com/peliculas/pelicula-86046/)
8. [20 años de 'Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios' (III), 20minutos (3 April 2008)](https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/365678/0/mujeres/ataque/nervios/)
9. [Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988), Movistar Plus+](https://www.movistarplus.es/cine/mujeres-al-borde-de-un-ataque-de-nervios/ficha?id=346488&tipo=E)
10. [María Barranco: "Me corrí viva con mi primer aplauso", Cadena SER (22 January 2026)](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2026/01/22/maria-barranco-me-corri-viva-con-mi-primer-aplauso-cadena-ser/)
11. [Leer a Pedro Almodóvar, El País Babelia (24 October 2026)](https://elpais.com/babelia/2026-10-24/leer-a-pedro-almodovar-el-escritor-es-egoista-por-naturaleza.html)
12. [Ana María Sánchez-Arce, "Pure theatre: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios", in The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar, Manchester University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cinema-of-pedro-almodovar/pure-theatre-mujeres-al-borde-de-un-ataque-de-nervios/232190211A92893696FC5A068FE48ABC)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Satirical, black, and parody comedies of the 1980s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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