Critics reviews

[Law of Desire] is overstuffed and convoluted. This is both a feature and a bug... But as a feature, this complexity is also the film’s biggest strength... His most mature film upon release, Law of Desire repurposes the classic melodrama to tell a series of suppressed narratives with the visual and sentimental poetry they merit.

A lush, overblown, steamy, tragi-comedy murder thriller... there's something to offend and delight everyone... Wit, sex, drugs and topsy-turvy clichés abound; Almodóvar's sensuous style carries all before him. A life-affirming joy.

Law of Desire [is] a strange, riveting, gay version of a Hitchcockian thriller-melodrama about thwarted love. Almodóvar regulars Eusebio Poncela, Miguel Molina and Antonio Banderas play their extravagant, contorted roles with absolute conviction.

What it lacks in depth, ''Law of Desire'' makes up in surface energy, with a lively cast, a turbulent plot and a textbook-worthy collection of case histories... [Almodovar] is capable of attention-getting forays into anything-goes behavior, and of a seriousness not easily mistaken for guilt or gloom. ''Law of Desire'' is an entertaining jumble, though it hardly needs the standard thriller elements on which it finally relies.