Open Your Eyes

Taking Best Picture honors at the Tokyo Film Festival and snaring 7 Goya Awards (the Spanish equivalent of Oscars), Alejandro Amenábar 's Open Your Eyes stars Eduardo Noriega as César, a spoiled rich lothario who steals the lovely Sofia (Penelope Cruz) away from his best friend, falls in love over the course of a small-talk-filled evening, and then--follow the logic closely here--is picked up next morning by a skanky former one night stand who, feeling a bit miffed about being dumped, drives her car over a cliff, killing herself and horribly disfiguring Mr. Pretty Boy's face. If you think that's weird, here's the really bad news: that little bit of plotline is the most comprehensible thing that happens in the film. Since the audience sees, early on, a psychologist talking to a masked César in jail (locked up on a murder charge), we know that everything else we're seeing is in flashback; but to make matters slightly more complicated, Amenábar toys with time and sleeping vs. waking states. Did the doctors really successfully reconstitute César's face? If so, why does he keep reverting to Elephant Boy? How come Sofia alternately throws herself at and spurns César? When is César really sleeping and when is he really awake? Why do all the TVs keep showing the same documentary on cryogenics? For nigh on 105 of the film's 117 minutes, audiences are left treading narrative water, waiting for the all-will-be-revealed-before-the-credits lifejacket to be tossed in. Whether it was worth the wait will be a matter of individual opinion. Not recommended (that's mine). (R. Pitman)