Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Alamo, Blanca Suarez
Rating: (R16)
Three stars (out of five)
If you are a fan of foreign films you sit up and pay attention when you hear that Antonio Banderas will be returning to his native tongue and starring in a film by Pedro Almodovar, the Spanish director who set him on his road to international stardom. The Skin I Live In (Rialto) is certainly nothing like his recent roles in Hollywood.
Here he swaps Latin lover for mad scientist. He is Robert Ledgard, a surgeon with an unusual family background and a run of recent tragedies, which see him lose his wife and his only child. Emotionally numb he turns to medical experimentation. The creation of a superior type of skin able to repel insect bites and withstand burning is his intention. But he steps outside the boundaries of medical ethics by splicing pig and human DNA to achieve it. Ledgard then really goes for broke by imprisoning his own human lab rat and upgrading her bit by bit with the wonderful new skin.
As the experiment continues he loses his scientific detachment.
Whatever his intention at the start, by the time Vera (Elena Anaya) has a new skin she has become his perfect woman. But the mysterious Vera is not the docile creature she is at pains to appear. She too has a secret.
• Best thing: Almodovar is known for his love of over-the-top plotting but The Skin I Live In has enough crazy plot twists to keep you talking for weeks.
• Worst thing: This is not for the squeamish. Some of the medical procedures outlined have caused people to faint.
• See it with: An Almodovar aficionado.
- CHRISTINE POWLEY
