What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Spanish: ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!) is a 1984 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The title is sometimes given with an exclamation mark at the end rather than a question mark. Starring Carmen Maura, Ángel de Andrés López, Chus Lampreave and Verónica Forqué, the film follows the misadventures of an overworked housewife and her dysfunctional family. Almodóvar has described What Have I Done as a homage to Italian neorealism, although this tribute also involves jokes about paedophilia, prostitution, and a telekinetic child.
In the film, Gloria is an impoverished housewife and cleaning lady, trapped in a loveless marriage. Her taxicab driver husband is still pining for a German singer, who he briefly dated several years ago. He has a secondary career as a forger, specializing in forging private letters from Adolf Hitler. He plans to eventually forge Hitler diaries for a bigger profit. An argument between husband and wife leads to mariticide. Gloria is abandoned by most of her family, but gets away with her crime. By the end of the story, she is financially dependent on her youngest son, who works as a child prostitute.
