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My Dear Young Miss (Mi Querida Señorita)

Jaime de Armiñán
Spain / 1971 / 84 mins. / Spanish

Adela, a provincial middle-aged spinster, gleefully accepts the engagement of a local businessman before becoming appalled by his physical advances. Upon the advice of her local priest, she sees a psychiatrist, who discloses the unspeakable: Adela is, in fact, a man. Horrified, she moves to Madrid and begins a new life as Juan. Far from being just a transgender drama, the film is about boundless desire, showing that love pays no attention to reason.Criticism understood that this time, the result was very different from the erotic fashion sketches. My dear young miss is a learning history full of pain and doubt, and is also a story of love beyond any obstacle, any rule, any limitations. You need not stay in appearances but to discover what lies beneath. In short, My dear young miss is one of those Spanish films that arise from time to time and that can be called good without any kind of paternalism.

Jaime de Armiñán was born in Madrid in 1927. He worked as a writer and as theatre director. His first film was Carola day, Carola night  (1969), with the Spanish folckloric super star Marisol. Most of his films as My dear young miss, A Spanish chaste male (1973), The Love of Captain Brando (1974), Never Too Late (1977), Serving the Spanish woman (1978) or the Nest (1980), have won several awards or even had been nominated for an Oscar. Armiñán has created a world that, in his words, try to be "a realistic film but with a somewhat fantastic escape, since the magic function of cinema is precisely to get the public to escape the grim daily reality.