RIPENING ALMODOVAR SUCCEEDS AGAIN WITH `MOTHER'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

If you're among the few who have caught Pedro Almodovar's last couple of ``mature'' movies, you've probably questioned the usefulness of maturity.

Intelligent and complex as ``Flower of My Secret'' and ``Live Flesh'' were, they were stiffs compared to the exuberant outrages the Spanish auteur served up earlier, those wacky examinations of outlandish passions and libidos such as ``Matador,'' ``Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown'' and ``Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!''

But the more sober approach of recent years has been a necessary step in Almodovar's development, and his great new film ``All About My Mother'' is the happy result. Emotionally deeper, with a bigger heart and wider imaginative scope than his earlier, post-Franco freakouts, ``Mother'' also incorporates the anything-goes playfulness missing in recent years.

It's a demented but beautiful ode to womanhood and the maternal impulse, as well as a celebration of creativity in all its forms, from classical to downright alarming. Packed with dire plot turns but forgiving and hopeful in convincingly pragmatic ways, ``Mother'' earned Almodovar the directing award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for a vital reason - it's the finest film he's ever made, and he's made many fine ones.

The poised center of this behavioral spinning top is Cecilia Roth's Manuela, a Madrid transplant coordinator who trains medical personnel in the delicate art of coaxing bereaved relatives into donating their loved ones' vital organs. The single mother of bright, lovable teen-ager Esteban, Manuela is put to a horrendous test when the boy, her only child, is hit by a truck the night of his birthday.

Manuela deals with her grief by returning to Barcelona, where she last saw the father her son never knew (and who never knew about him). She intends to seek out her ex, but we see early on that a lot of distractions will delay the reunion.

Her first act on the Costa Brava is to taxi to a prostitute pickup field. Far from lost, Manuela's searching for an old pal, the feisty transsexual La Agrado (Antonia San Juan). Agrado, as you might expect, has a few problems, as do the other females Manuela soon encounters.

There's the pregnant, HIV-positive nun Sister Rosa, played without glamour by the stunning Penelope Cruz. There's Huma Rojo (Almodovar favorite Marisa Paredes), a theatrical grande dame whose traveling stage production of ``A Streetcar Named Desire'' was a prominent factor in Esteban's death, and her drug-addicted, much younger co-star and lover Nina (Candela Pena).

Manuela finds herself playing den mother to these volatile souls, and in the process brings out each individual's particular brand of feminine strength. Manuela's natural acting ability takes on more and more facets as she rises to fulfill the expanding demands of her ad hoc family of women.

Almodovar has always been a genius at depicting the opposite sex and, to a lesser extent, men whose female characteristics dominate their self-image. He goes for broke with all of that in ``All About My Mother,'' but that's not all. The signature Almodovar style of bright, splotchy primary colors and kitschy/severe decor is present in accenting ways here, but toned down to a subtler yet somehow more evocative level.

As in most of the director's films, The cultural iconography is rich and delirious here - the film's title is a remarked-upon tribute to the Bette Davis camp masterpiece ``All About Eve.'' But like so many aspects of this movie, such stuff is delivered with an offhanded gravity that invests it with resonant feeling and politicized humor.

Of course, none of this is new to Almodovar's body of work. But finding a new depth in one's identifying traits is the greatest thing that this movie is all about.

The facts

The film: ``All About My Mother'' (R; language, sex, drug use).

The stars: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Penelope Cruz, Candela Pena, Antonia San Juan.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar. Produced by Agustin Almodovar. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 41 minutes.

Playing: Fine Arts, Beverly Hills; Royal, West L.A.; Playhouse 7, Pasadena.

Our rating: Four stars.