This year's Cannes Film Festival opener is a pleasing mix of torrid passions, leading revelations, child abuse and classic blackmail in a story that flips seamlessly between the Sixties past of the repressed Franco era and an expressive period of freedom in Eighties Madrid.

With echoes of Pedro Almodovar's earlier melodrama All About My Mother, the story introduces characters of genuine heart and shady identities. It begins with a meeting between film director Enrique (Fele Martinez) and actor Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal), who were old school friends and in love in their childhood.

Ignacio has come up with a script, entitled The Visit, about their past and, reading it, Enrique and the viewer is taken back to when they studied at a Catholic boys school, under the "wandering hands" tutelage of Father Manolo (Daniel Gimenez-Cacho). A tragic tale of romantic obsession emerges, involving transvestite gay love, that truly keeps you guessing until the final moments.

Almodovar had been working on the script for 10 years. He drew upon his own childhood, but claims it is not autobiographical.

Bad Education is a flamboyantly assured film noir, with fierce passions and great performances.