Review of The Skin I Live In (2011) by Veronica S — 03 Apr 2013

Even with Robert Ledgard(Antonio Banderas) being a super-renowned plastic surgeon, he is still not allowed to experiment on humans, swearing up and down to the institute president(Jose Luis Gomez) that he has not been doing so. Except he is lying. The good news, ethics aside, is he has been very successful with Vera(Elena Anaya), kept in isolation at his villa, even as she makes it painfully clear how much she disagrees with that assessment. Marilia(Marisa Paredes) warns him that he will either eventually have to kill her or free her. And that's before Zeca(Roberto Alamo) shows up in a tiger suit...

As much as I am a fan of Pedro Almodovar, it is on a sad note that his latest film "The Skin I Live In" comes as something of a disappointment, even as it heralds back to his earlier provocations, with characters being violated in more than one way. But that coupled with the director's recent formalism results in a strangely vapid concoction that has more to do with "Vertigo" than "Eyes without a Face." Some of that comes down to the movie's flashback structure, including a circling back to a key incident which changes nothing, that assumes we have any interest in who Vera and Robert are/were. And Marilia's revelations about Robert's family history are irrelevant considering anybody could have snapped after all he had been through. What would have worked much better is if "The Skin I Live In" had been told in a straightforward fashion, allowing the tension and unease to build naturally in a what-is-this-sick-bastard-going-to-come-up-with-next sort of way.