SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

amazing_sincodek ...whatever that genre is. I'm not sure there's a name for it, but if there were, there would be no trouble filling a shelf with the relevant titles. It's the Truman Show genre, the Inception genre, the Shutter Island genre, etc.It's not as strong as the above-mentioned films, but it's still fun to follow the twists and turns on the edge of your seat.Maybe I'm disappointed, in part, because I liked the premise that was established in the first fifteen minutes or so. The film starts out as a condemnation of physical beauty, with the phrase "open your eyes" suggesting paradoxically that one must not look only with his or her eyes in determining the value of a human being. It's a cliché of sorts, but I liked it.This theme becomes less relevant as the film progresses. By the end of the film, the phrase "open your eyes" loses its moral relevance. It just becomes a boring, nearly literal description of how the protagonist has a hard time know what is and isn't real. You can argue that, therefore e, it has a double (triple?) meaning, but it's kind of arbitrary, in that the second half of the movie really doesn't build on or develop the themes from the first half.Yeah, anyway, so it's pretty cool, but IMDb's 7.8 seems a little high to me. Good movie, good entertainment, but not quite brilliant.

bts1984 Although I didn't get to see 'Vanilla Sky' in 2001, when I got the chance to see it was still a relatively recent movie. Back then I didn't know yet that many of the recent movies I saw were in reality remakes. In other words, I didn't know there were original versions.At the time, I had good expectations about "Vanilla Sky", partially because of its delicious title and partially because it appeared to be good. I was frankly disappointed with it.This one, the original and true version, is superior, easily eclipsing the remake. Even what seemed good in "Vanilla Sky" before seems mediocre next to the original. If you want 'Vanilla Sky' done right, don't look any further - this is it.Admittedly, it's still not an "easy" movie, but it's marginally easier to understand than the flawed American version. But even the original requires extra attention, otherwise it will be even more confusing. It's also more intriguing, more suspenseful, more tragic, more touching, more original, more artistic, deeper and more intense, not to mention it has a very nice soundtrack.Overall, a movie of higher quality. And ahead of its time. In 1997, movies this brave and complex were something from another world or even another planet. Nowadays we easily find movies like this, but in 1997 that was another music.On paper, "Abre los ojos" is the predictable story of a young man (César) who has everything in life: he is rich, good-looking, popular among his friends and lucky with women. That's the easy part. Behind this simple idea lies an extraordinary and exceptionally complex story. Unexpectedly, César meets the charming Sofia and instantly falls in love with her. She corresponds but soon César's life changes completely, when his insanely jealous lover Nuria tricks him into a trap by offering him a ride, covering her true intentions. She intentionally commits suicide by crashing the car. César survives, but his face gets seriously deformed.César is willing to pay anything for a cosmetic surgery, so that he can have his normal face again, return to his life and reconquer Sofia. Much for César's sorrow, nobody can (or doesn't want to) operate his face. After that traumatizing experience, César becomes emotionally unstable, aggressive, confused, deeply depressed and his mental health changes dangerously: he suffers from flashbacks, disturbing visions, is unable to distinguish dreams from reality and even confounds Sofia with Nuria - and by seeing Nuria instead of Sofia, he reacts with violence to that and the innocent Sofia is the one who pays. To tell the truth, the film comes to a point which is almost impossible to tell what's real and what's not - but all this complicated mess only makes it more interesting and remarkable. An amazing yet strong movie with also a surprising ending...But the movie isn't all about tragedy. There is also a romance between César and Sofia, and there is some sexuality. The lovely Penélope Cruz is seen naked. Penélope is beautiful with clothes, but naked she is simply divine. And she's got very lovely boobs.Eduardo Noriega is superb, so much better than Tom Cruise. The actress who plays Nuria, despite her minor role, is clearly superior to Cameron Diaz. Penélope Cruz is in both versions and plays the same role in both but she is better in this one. Maybe it was the pressure and boredom of doing the same thing twice, which affects the performance? Maybe because in the original she speaks her native language? Must be that. Not that I blame her. I love Chete Lera's fantastic acting as Antonio and Gérard Barray's terrific acting as Serge Duvernois (and he speaks Spanish so well that you don't even notice any french accent on him). Fele Martínez is good as César's friend Pelayo.Title in Portugal: 'De Olhos Abertos'.

Nuno Duarte Open Your Eyes, by Alejandro Amenábar. César (Eduardo Noriega) and Pelayo (Fele Martínez) are a couple of friends. In Madrid, it's César's birthday and Pelayo takes Sofia (Penélope Cruz) to his party. While Pelayo claims to lose all the girls to César as the normal guy he believes to be when near him, César is a rich good looking fellow with everything going perfect with his life. Back in his party, César is trying to get rid of a girl, Núria (Najwa Nimri), who he has been dating. He goes requests Sofia's help with that, upsetting Pelayo. Sofía goes home with César and although nothing happened, it's visible that César fell in love with her. In the following morning, Núria was waiting for him downstairs Sofía's and convinced César to go home with her. On their way, Núria crashes her car whit both in it, on propose. After that the plot is a big mess believe me it's impossible to describe using just words. The most important is that we easily perceive, somewhere in the middle of the movie that César suffers some sort of mental disease, but while the end is approaching, we start doubting it. I don't know about the end (please skip until next paragraph if you haven't watched the movie yet), but as I was saying, the end leaves arguments to a lot of different interpretations. I see most of the people agree on the opinion that the whole thing following the night he got drunk was a dream, but I personally believe that he was mentally insane and the whole EL thing was created in his mind in order to explain everything he went through. Anyway, I kind of think the end wasn't good enough for this movie, thats went in very good manner. Another pearl coming from two great actresses, Penélope and Najwa, perhaps the best female duo from Spain, though only the first one achieved international success. It's a shame this sort of movies don't get the same projection as the American. 8/10

leplatypus Actually, as I saw the American remake yesterday with director's commentary it was strange to watch this original vision now all the more that it's in Spanish, it stars also Penelope and the story is really particular.The remake is very close to this movie: the scenes are totally alike: The remake adds a lot of clues that appears a bit useless (TV screens, the best friend meeting Julie/Nuria) and its cast except Penelope is maybe less appealing: Tom Cruise isn't a better Cesar (except maybe his idea to mock his cry in front of the mirror) and Russell is certainly less moving than the Spanish Psy. The real differences appear in budget with the remake having more expensive wardrobe, music and special effects.But the emotional impact doesn't really follow the money raise because this Spanish original is more like us, the audience, thus we can relate to what happens. As for Penelope, i find her more shy here than in the remake: either it's her experience in movies, either American and Spanish have a different feeling about relationship.But as it's about a triangle, an impossible and ideal love portrayed by a smiling and delicate brunette, I feel really touched by those movies.PKD would agree.