Tie Me Up/Tie Me Down

Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, Tie Me Up/Tie Me Down follows unbalanced mental patient Ricky (Antonio Banderas) as he sets out to convince porn star Marina Osorio (Victoria Abril) that they’re perfect for each other – which he accomplishes by kidnapping her and holding her captive in her own apartment. It’s an off-kilter premise that’s employed to distressingly ineffective effect by Almodóvar, as the filmmaker has infused the proceedings with a disastrously deliberate pace that holds the viewer at arms length from start to finish – with the movie’s hands-off atmosphere compounded by an uneventful screenplay that leaves the far-from-fleshed-out characters with exceedingly little to do. It doesn’t help, either, that the film is almost entirely lacking in the panache that one might’ve expected, with Almodóvar’s subdued sensibilities essentially placing a microscope over each and every one of the movie’s many, many deficiencies. There’s a pervasively stagnant feel here that grows more and more problematic as time (slowly) progresses, as the film boasts (or suffers from) a midsection devoted solely to the lifeless dynamic between the two protagonists (ie Ricky abducts Marina and then nothing much of interest occurs). Tie Me Up/Tie Me Down‘s failure is ultimately cemented by Almodóvar’s treatment of Abril’s flighty Marina, as the character’s attitude towards her captor seems to turn on a dime (ie she hates him one minute and loves him the next) and it’s consequently impossible to work up an ounce of interest in or concern for her well-being – which, in the end, makes it difficult to care one way or the other how this all turns out.

*1/2 out of ****