Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos)
I am thankful for Eduardo Noriega and Fele Martínez.

This Thanksgiving, I am quite thankful for Eduardo Noriega and Fele Martínez, the two Spanish hotties who star in Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos), a truly awesome film and one of my favorites. This movie, an import from Spain, was briefly released in the United States last year and is now available on video. By turns a science fiction flick, a thriller, a horror movie, and a meditation on the nature of memory and reality, Open Your Eyes is a spooky, creepy, mind-bending trip that will stay with you for days.

It's hard to describe the plot, but basically what we have here is the story of César (Noriega), a handsome, wealthy, spoiled young man who spends his days hanging out with his much more ordinary pal Pelayo (Martínez) and his nights seducing his way through all the women in Madrid. In fact, César takes great pride in the fact that he never sleeps with the same woman twice. I know -- lovely, right? Then one night at a party, he meets Sofía (Penélope Cruz) and finds himself falling deeply, and actually rather sweetly, in love for real. The fact that Sofía is Pelayo's new girlfriend does not, frankly, bother him all that much.

But before he can really act on his feelings, he foolishly accepts a ride home from an angry ex-fling, Nuria (Najwa Nimri). Stung by César's continued rejection, Nuria deliberately runs her car off the road and down an embankment. She's killed, and César is horribly disfigured.

This is where things really begin to get weird. César's doctors tell him they can't ever restore his good looks -- but then suddenly they can, and they do. Or do they? Sofía, initially cold, warms to César's advances. Or does she? Even Pelayo, who is understandably bitter about losing his girl to his best friend, finally decides he's okay with the whole thing. Or does he? César begins to shift between different realities, between past and present, between dreaming and waking. Eventually, wearing a mask to hide his deformed features, he is imprisoned for a murder that may or may not have been committed. We -- and César -- are never quite sure whether what's going on at any moment is "real," but during the final scenes, everything clicks into place and the events of the movie all begin to make a twisted sort of sense.

So I'm thankful that I even had the chance to see this movie, because it was only in the theater in my area for about a week and I could easily have missed it, and I'm thankful that it's now on video so I can rent (or buy it) at my leisure. And I'm particularly thankful that in Noriega and Martínez, director Alejandro Amenábar found a couple of very tasty actors who can actually act. (Noriega, in particular, does a great job conveying his emotions from behind a blank, impassive mask, and building a great deal of sympathy for a character who starts out as a macho womanizer.) As for the female leads, Cruz does her best work ever (and yes, I'm including All About My Mother in that assessment), and Nimri is great as the demented (or is she?) Nuria.

However, I am not thankful that Cameron Crowe is planning an English-language remake of this movie, under the unlikely title of Vanilla Sky, or that he plans to cast Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in the lead roles. What is that man thinking? But that shouldn't stop you from running, running, running out to see Open Your Eyes on video. Yes, it's in Spanish. Yes, there are subtitles. That shouldn't stop you either. Go rent this movie. Between the excellent actors and the kick-ass script, I promise you won't be sorry.

DROOL FACTOR: As noted above, Noriega, sans mask or makeup, is mighty fine indeed. Martínez has this sort of sad-puppy expression that will make you want to give him a big hug. So in other words, yes.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: César's disfigurement is extreme and disturbing, but other than that, not much.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: Hmmm. Well, the women in this movie aren't pushovers, but César does tend to treat them as prizes as opposed to people. On the other hand, he does pay for his womanizing ways. Call it a toss-up.

-- Kate Nagy

Open Your Eyes is currently available on video.

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