Main Cast: Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz, Chete Lera, Fele Martínez, Najwa Nimri
Release Year: 1997
Country: IT/FR/ES
Run Time: 117 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The line between dreams and reality become increasingly blurred after a womanizing playboy is nearly killed by a jilted lover in Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar's masterful sophomore effort Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). It would seem as if Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) has it all. Handsome, charming, and with money to burn, he can get any girl he wants, and usually does so on a nightly basis. Following a birthday party in which he chats up Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the date of his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez), Cesar is plunged headfirst into a nightmare world when jealous former lover Nuria (Najwa Nimri) swallows a handful of pills and sends her car careening into a cement wall with the terrified playboy as her hapless passenger. With his formerly strikingly handsome face now twisted into a hideous mass of scarred flesh, Cesar's ugly emotions are now externalized for all to see. Pining for a plastic-surgery miracle to return him to his former glory so that he can seek out Sofia and take a chance at real love, he is pleasantly surprised when the doctors make a breakthrough and Sofia accepts him back into her life. Although all seems perfect for the moment, the formerly soulless player finds that this is only the beginning of his increasingly disturbing journey. Why is Sofia changing appearance and turning into Nuria periodically? And why won't the police and his psychiatrist believe Cesar's desperate attempts to rationalize a world that is growing increasingly surreal? Could it have something to do with a doctor Cesar has seen on television who keeps appearing and attempting to help him out of his nightmare? Peeling away at the layers of his subconscious, Cesar begins to realize that reality is no more than a state of mind, and that in order to get his life back he may be forced to take unthinkable measures. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Review
Open Your Eyes opened doors in Hollywood for its Spanish director, Alejandro Amenabar. Amenabar and screenwriter Mateo Gil created an odd and compelling film that is by turns unsettling and somewhat silly. The film is at its strongest when dramatizing how the narcissistic womanizer Cesar (Eduardo Noriega, who also starred in Amenabar's first film, Thesis) deals with his disfigurement. His obsession with his appearance is so severe that he even stops to look in the mirror while fleeing the scene of a brutal murder. Certainly, the makeup job makes the once handsome Cesar look somewhat monstrous, but no one is nearly as repulsed by his looks as he is. The audience is in a position to recognize that Cesar's hideous disfigurement is an accurate reflection of the ugliness inside of him, having seen the way he's treated his best friend, Pelayo (Fele Martinez), and his erstwhile girlfriend, Nuria (Najwa Nimri of Before Night Falls). The interchangeableness of Nuria and Sofia (Penelope Cruz) in his "dream" life (if it is a dream) suggests a clear analogy for Cesar's archaic view of women, and further intimates that Cesar is subconsciously aware of, and repulsed by, his inner self. It's clear that even if he is whole physically, that ugliness will find a way to manifest itself. The film works brilliantly on this metaphorical level, but its science fiction underpinnings are not quite convincing. The ending is entertaining in a roundabout way, but its fancifulness dampens some of the movie's intriguing power. The film was not widely distributed in the U.S., but it got the attention of actor Tom Cruise, who in turn showed it to writer/director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), and the two collaborated on a Hollywood remake, Vanilla Sky. Cruise also produced Amenabar's first Hollywood production, The Others. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
From a prison cell in an unnamed city, César, a 25-year-old in a prosthetic mask, tells his story to psychiatrist Antonio. Flashbacks reveal the following events: Good-looking César is attractive to women. At his birthday party he flirts with Sofía, the girlfriend of his best friend Pelayo. The next morning, he accepts a lift from his obsessive ex-lover Nuria. She crashes the car, committing suicide, and César is horribly disfigured, beyond the help of cosmetic surgery. Sofía prefers Pelayo again.
After César's disfigurement, he begins to have a series of disorienting experiences. Drunk, César falls asleep in the street. On awakening everything has changed: Sofía now claims to love him and the surgeons restore his lost looks. But as he makes love to Sofía one night, she apparently changes into Nuria. Horrified, César murders her, yet finds everyone else believes Nuria was indeed Sofía.
While he is confined to the prison, fragments of his past return to him as if in a dream. It is gradually revealed that, shortly after his disfigurement, César contracted with 'Life Extension', a company specializing in cryonics, to be cryogenically preserved and to experience extremely lucid and lifelike virtual realitydreams. Returning to their headquarters, under strict supervision by prison officers, he discovers they specialise in cryonics with a twist: "artificial perception" or the provision of a fantasy based on the past to clients who are reborn in the future. He then committed suicide and was placed in cryonic suspension. His experiences from about the midpoint of the movie onward have been a dream, spliced retroactively into his actual life and replacing his true memories. At the end of the film he elects to wake up and be resurrected. Convinced his life since the drunken night in the street is simply a nightmarish vision created by Life Extension, César leaps from the roof of the company's high-rise headquarters, resolving to open his eyes once more to real life outside the cryonic fantasy.
Critical reaction to Open Your Eyes has been mostly positive. James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three and a half stars (out of four), saying that movies "of this intelligence, audacity, and complexity come along so rarely that it's mandatory to cry out their arrival" and that "those who see it will not quickly forget the experience."[2] Rob Blackwelder of SplicedWire gave the film four stars (out of four), calling it "a jaw-dropping psychological thriller" that's "beautifully orchestrated."[3] Richard Scheib of The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review also gave Open Your Eyes four stars, calling it "quite a remarkable film."[4] Holly E. Ordway of DVD Active said, "I don’t give out “perfect 10” ratings lightly, but Open Your Eyes earns one by all accounts."[5] Aaron Beierle of DVD Talk gave a lukewarm review, saying that he "found most of Open Your Eyes interesting" but remarked that "there's something about the picture that kept me from being completely involved."[6] The music to the film has also contributed to a success of the movie.
Remake
Director Cameron Crowe remade the film as Vanilla Sky (2001), with Tom Cruise in the lead role (renamed David Aames), Penélope Cruz reprising her role as Sophia, Cameron Diaz as the girl who disfigures David (renamed Julianna Gianni), Jason Lee as the friend (renamed Brian Shelby), and Kurt Russell as the psychiatrist (renamed Curtis McCabe). The remake also transplants the action from Madrid to New York. The remake follows the original plot very closely but makes minor changes to the ending and incorporates many pop culture references.
Critical reaction to Vanilla Sky was mixed. It currently holds a 39% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 157 reviews (62 positive, 95 negative).[7] Critic Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called the film an "extraordinarily narcissistic high-concept vanity project for producer-star Tom Cruise."[8] The film was better received by general audiences, unaware of the fact that it was based on a Spanish film.
