A beauty and the beast tale with a whole lot of twists, most of them nasty. A relentless, hedonistic womanizer, the handsome and wealthy César (Eduardo Noriega) meets his grim match in the comely, unbalanced Nuria (Najwa Nimri): On César's 25th birthday,
the casually discarded beauty persuades him to join her for a drive in her snazzy red Alfa Romeo, then floors the accelerator and drives it right off the road. César is left horribly disfigured and drowning in bitterness. Specifically, he pines for Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful girl he met
at his birthday party, hit on despite the fact that she arrived with his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez), and has convinced himself was destined to be the true love who would rescue him from his own worst impulses. César recounts these events from a mental home, his face hidden behind an eerie
mask despite his psychiatrist's assurance that experimental plastic surgery has restored his looks. César insists that he's the victim of some sort of conspiracy, one that's bound up somehow with his nightmares of Madrid as a desolate ghost town, recurring episodes of déja vu, unnerving
glimpses of Nuria (whom he was told died in the accident), and the haunting sound of a woman's voice saying "Open your eyes." Okay, this Spanish psychological thriller is at heart a feature length episode of The Twilight Zone. But it's a good episode, creepy, carefully constructed
and ultimately true to its own twisted logic. The rights for a Hollywood remake (eventually titled VANILLA SKY) were bought before the original film ever opened in the US. --Maitland McDonagh
