ViewGuide

Created Nov 23, 2011 09:00PM PST • Edited Dec 01, 2018 09:21PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Fantástico, this latest creation by the brilliant Pedro Almodóvar; deliciously twisted too, in a gender bending, role reversing way.

   Revenge and desire drive the convoluted yet well-told story. A never more dashing Antonio Bandaras plays a super-surgeon who maintains a personal clinic in his walled mansion, complete with prison-like quarters for special patients. Is he a bad guy? Tough to tell, especially because the women in his life died in tragic circumstances. And what’s up with the beautiful patient who wants to be his lover?

   This being an Almodóvar movie, Fellini-esque decadence intrudes often, as do scenes of arresting visual brilliance. Of the former, a man in a carnival costume cavorting through a hum-drum street scene tickles away any sense of normalcy, while glimpses of teenagers engaging in group sex imply pervasive amorality. Of the latter, a bigscreen captures the beautiful patient as … what? A work of art, an obsession, a comment on our voyeuristic age? Fantástico, Pedro.

   Pitch black comedy lightens the movie, making even the most shocking and occasionally revolting scenes darkly funny, triggering frequent LOLs even.

   Almodóvar fans know to see his movies. Connoisseurs of dark comedy, subversive societal commentaries, and sheer movie star glamour should also step into The Skin I Live In.

   A note about the subtitles: The Spanish dialog is rather spare, making it fairly easy to read along in English.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Antonio Banderas looks like a cross between Sean Connery and Cary Grant. Were Grant to see this movie in heaven, he would exclaim “There goes a handsome man.” Oh yeah, Banderas can also act, creating an indelible impression as a plastic surgeon whose absolute power has gone to his head.

   Elena Anaya stuns as a beautiful patient living in captivity. This is her second terrific performance of the year, the other being in Point Blank. She also made a strong impression in Mesrine Killer Instinct. Can Hollywood stardom be far behind?

   The rest of the cast are almost as strong.

   • Marisa Paredes, who has 111 acting credits to her name in IMDb, is entertainingly jaundiced as a too-loyal housekeeper and terrible mother.
   • Roberto Álamo is funny and then terrifying as her bad seed son returned home.
   • Jan Cornet deftly plays a twitchy young man with too many recreational drugs in his system.
   • Susi Sánchez is sternly affecting as his mother, while Bárbara Lennie is suitably aloof as a lesbian who rebuffs his advances.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Were Almodóvar straight, this film doesn’t get made. Only a man outside normative sexual proclivities makes something like this.

    Sexual politics aside, this is another directorial triumph for Almodóvar, a circular story told in a figure-eight, where countless scenes darkly pay-off earlier scenes that were seemingly light-hearted. These ah-ha moments start to arrive before the end of the first reel, then keep coming, ultimately peaking near the climax, which pays off so well it kicks the entire film into the realm of greatness. Bravo!

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    Coming back-to-back with Broken Embraces, Almodóvar is clearly in a particularly fecund period.

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    The flat screen on which Elena Anaya is projected serves as a canvas for all sorts of unhealthy projections, including a sexual predator metaphorically licking his prey.

    Speaking of fantasy objects, the M6 that Bandaras drives is damn near a character in the movie.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.4

    Sex and sexual violence suffuse the movie. Two rapes, including a date rape, are central to the plot. Given how extremely arch the movie is, these are easier to view than one might assume, especially as the complex plot reveals that one of the victims is hardly an innocent.

17. Sex Erotic 3.4

18. Violence Brutal 2.9

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.8

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.3

    Human biology isn’t nearly so malleable as Almodóvar would have it, to call out the movie’s most libertine reality conceit.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.4

23. Biological Surreal 2.9

24. Physical Glib 1.5