This text analyses director Pedro Almodovar's insights into gender, sexuality and subjectivity in his film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The author draws on a range of psychoanalytic and critical concepts and sees the film as an account of the often tyrannical spell of sexual desire, of the anxieties of relationships and families, but also of the possibilities of personal liberation. Peter William Evans also discusses the recent history of Spain and ties the film's concerns into the social revolution which occurred after the death of Franco.