Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989)

Antonio Banderas was truly in his form and height of career when he was cast in Almovodar's Spanish movies. Banderas portrayed innocence and simplicity of character in these early movies that Hollywood always seems to make large and gloss over any sort of character development. There is something that Hollywood seems to drain away and leave behind in the character of people, yet Banderas/Almovodar capture so perfectly the average man/woman and portray them in interesting ways. Atame (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down) is a delicious little movie about a crook who falls in love with an actress. To get her attention, he kidnaps her and the fun begins. Almovodar's movies are always filled with quirky characters, funny dialogue and plot twists. To see Antonio Banderas at his finest playing a simple man who falls in love but has some issues..Atame is a cute, touching movie to rent.

Fmovies: As this film opens Ricky learns that he is to be released from the mental institution that he has been confined to for the last few years. Upon release he immediately sets about finding Marina, a woman he spent the night with after escaping a year previously. Marina is now a 'proper' actress but at the time she met Ricky she was a porn star with a drug problem. Ricky goes to the film set then follows her home; once inside her apartment he knocks her out and ties her up. When she awakens he tells her that it is his intention that she will fall in love with him.

I found this film to be a lot of fun; it is frequently very funny, occasionally very sexy and more than a little bit morally twisted! Victoria Abril and Antonia Banderas are really solid as Marina and Ricky making it is easy to believe their characters' rather different relationship. Early on there is a sense of menace as Ricky kidnaps and threatens Marina, this however is tempered by various more humorous elements such as them needing to get medication for her toothache and Ricky's disguises in a couple of scenes. The way the story is filmed is more in the way of a romantic comedy then anything menacing; lots of bright colours and an airy apartment rather than subdued tones and some stark grey cellar. Some may find the ending rather offensive but if you don't take the film too seriously it is easy to accept and enjoy. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody looking for a 'rom-com' with a twist; it won't be for everybody though thanks to the way our two leads get together.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

It's Almodovar's best film that I've seen. Complex, raw, provocative and very funny. Most of the initial press/comments on this film seemed to be fairly ignorant. It's not sexist at all; it's quite a vicious critique of the roles and expectations women are faced with and how they compromise themselves and their desires to face them.

I thought it was astounding, hilarious and thought-provoking.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! fmovies. Although Tie me up, tie me down doesn't reach the levels of greatness that Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown did, this is none the less a hilarious movie.

First thing that you should remember is that this is a FARCE. It isn't intended to reflect a real situation or inspire people to imitate it. As a matter of fact, I'd be hard pressed to believe that anyone watching this movie would come away thinking they should kidnap someone to make them fall in love. That would be the difference between a movie and reality.

That being said the movie does have a lot to say about what people will do for love and how love and lust tie us to other people. It also makes the great point that love doesn't change who we are, but it does change how we perceive those we are in love with.

And in case I forgot to mention it, the movie is funny. Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril both are very good but Loles León steals the movie as the air-headed sister.

It's safe to say that even in a film by Pedro Almodovar that is only marginally successful within the margins there are some good, steamy, questionable times to be had. I can just imagine Pedro sitting in front of his notebook just figuring out ways to mix sex, film-making, kidnapping, and other lewd exercises into some kind of cohesive single film. What makes a very good chunk of Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down exciting satirically is that Almodovar never gives in to making anything TOO serious. Which is perhaps what ends up transitioning the situation Ricky (Antonio Banderas) and Marina (Victoria Abril) are in from the absurd and flirtingly masochistic to the (ironically) conventional and quasi-sweetness that is obviously deep in Almodovar. Perhaps the tying up and re-tying becomes part of a metaphor on the filmmaker's part, that despite it being something very dangerous and totally provocative it's also inviting in ways that would be elusive otherwise. Then again, that the material does (mostly) work, by being so disturbing in the bluntness and perpetually deranged mind-set of Ricky, but then in the human connections that are enhanced all the more. If only the motivations- even in such loose and wacky-Almodovar circumstances- were a little more convincing.

Nevertheless, I liked a lot about Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down up until it goes off the rails with its logic turning into knots (simply, I just don't buy that Marina falls for Ricky just like that, even if she was an ex-junkie porn star, and Ricky's advances are like that of a uppity, headstrong but shy 13 year old, a slight reminder of A Life Less Ordinary's bizarrely innocuous kidnapping turned romance). Chiefly, the performances and the usually arty-yet-trashy style from Almodovar and his crew. Banderas is, by the way, in one of his best and funniest performances here, a near emblem of the male ideal for a life with a woman, and a with an innocent yet fervent attraction to bondage, with that perfect look in his eyes detailing all even in brief moments. Yet there was something about his stay in the mental home all those years that did something to his ideas towards sex and what it is to live, and Banderas captures this mix of intense sadism crossed with the heart of an old Hollywood-studio leading man who will do anything to brush the leading lady off of her feet. Abril is always believable too, even when Almodovar gives her character a turn around into something more akin to an exploitation film, however sweet it tries to be. While she decides to underplay her immediate fear of her kidnapper, it works to add a level of comic timing to Ricky's own odd-ball ways. They make a great pair, really, especially when it comes to that 'turning point', where Almodovar uses his unique style to get five ceiling-mirrored shot of a pivotal scene.

There's also a fantastic role of the director of the film Marina is starring in at the start of the film, the aged Maximo Espejo (Francisco Rabal, who's been in countless films including the Eclipse and Belle de Jour), who has the ideas burning and changing around at a beat as to what his ending will be for his actress- death, being saved, something else? His moments on screen display a richness that lies often in Almodovar's script, where the surreal pressures of shooting the movie for Maximo somewhat carry over- and sort of dissipate as the characters become vulnerable- into that realm where reality and un-reality cross paths. This is heightened, and made a little additionally conventional, by th

As far as I am concerned this is Almodóvar's most erotic comedic film ever made. I don't know how much has to do with the chemistry between Victoria Abril and Antonio Bandaras or if they are just excellent actors. !Atame! or "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down" in English has all of Almodovars' usual suspects and the story is told with the proper amount of impish humor and believable drama. Antonio Banadaras is 'comeble' as Ricky the orphaned, juvenal delinquent now grown and with a sexual talent to be admired. And Victoria Abril plays well the unknowing stalked film actress, who tries to use her wits to outsmart Ricky until he slowly wins her over. This is played for comedic satire and it works. One who doesn't appreciate this film obviously misses the subtleness of seduction. Oh yes, you must watch the subtitled version to pick up the intonations of the original voices and language. !Ay que calor!