C "High Heels," the new film by the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, opens today at the Charles.

Almodovar, the bad boy who electrified much of the film world with "Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Tie Me Up,Tie Me Down" isn't in full form, but the movie is nevertheless extremely en

tertaining, if a bit shallow.

It follows as a Madrid anchorwoman tries to come to terms with her flamboyant movie-star mother's reappearance in her life. That the daughter's husband was the mother's lover doesn't help matters much, particularly when he turns up dead.

Almodovar is a kind of clown prince of subversion and this film is no exception to his general tone: it's racy, neurotic, vivid, bitchy, melodramatic and very funny. Victoria Abril, of "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!" plays the anchorwoman, and Marisa Parades is the mother. The R-rated film will play at the Charles for a week.