Abstract This paper will compare and contrast some of the ways in which the 20th century film All About My Mother, by Pedro Almodovar, and the 17th century play The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare argue for approximation. Such proximity will be explored by looking at some of the characters in relation to shared human predicaments, such as the unruly desire, the complex affect’s link to action, and language’s inefficiency in uttering the affect in a way that provides meaning and leads to constructive behaviors.