The Flower of My Secret

Leo Macías writes popular romance novels under the pen name Amanda Gris, and she has come to resent the work that made her famous. Her husband, Paco, is a soldier serving abroad, and the distance between them has grown into a crisis she cannot bring herself to face. Isolated and uncertain, she keeps writing the sentimental books she no longer believes in while longing to produce something more serious. An introduction through her friend Betty brings her into contact with Ángel, an editor at a newspaper, and the encounter sets her life and her writing in a new direction.

Pedro Almodóvar directed and wrote the film, the seventh of the twenty-two features he has directed in chronological order, following Kika and preceding Live Flesh. Marisa Paredes plays Leo, with Juan Echanove as Ángel, Carme Elias as Betty, Rossy de Palma as Rosa, and Chus Lampreave and Kiti Mánver also in the cast. Esther García produced this Spanish-French co-production, made for about 5 million dollars.

Released in September 1995, the film is a drama with romantic elements. Its audience scores sit close together, at 7 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 14,000 votes and 6.8 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller number of votes, while its critics' rating stands at 7.1 out of 10 from twenty-nine reviews. The worldwide box office return of about 1 million dollars was modest against its production cost.