“A woman’s the best there is… I want to be one”

Molina’s declaration, “A woman’s the best there is… I want to be one,” transforms familiar advice into a pointed joke about gender and self-definition. Rather than accept the claim that a woman would straighten him out, he takes its praise of women to an unexpected conclusion: he wants to be one himself.

The Advice It Reverses

The remark follows a description of what people tell Molina: that he was spoiled as a child, remained tied to his mother, and could be set right if he had a woman. When Valentin asks whether this is really what they say, Molina confirms it and answers by accepting the advice’s premise only long enough to overturn its intended lesson. If a woman is “the best there is,” he reasons, becoming one would spare him the need to keep listening to other people’s counsel. He claims to know the situation clearly for himself.

Voice and Significance

The expression is comic, but its reversal gives Molina the final word against an explanation that treats his character as a problem for others to diagnose and repair. His answer does not simply ask for a woman; it refuses the proposed cure by making womanhood the position he chooses. The exchange presents that choice through Molina’s own speech, without resolving it into a broader account of his identity.

Valentin says he does not see the matter as clearly as Molina does. Molina responds that he does not need Valentin to clarify anything, then offers either to continue telling the film or to whisper it to himself. The declaration thus stands at a moment when advice becomes a dispute over who gets to define Molina, while his offer to withdraw the story makes his voice—and his control over whether to share it—part of the exchange.