What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Lucia is a waitress who lives and works in Madrid. After what she believes to be the loss of her boyfriend, the tortured writer Lorenzo, she flees to a secluded island that he had often told her about. There she meets Carlos and Elena, who have also run away to the island to escape personal tragedy. Unbeknownst to them, all three have a connection to Lorenzo. Elena met him many years ago on that same island and enjoyed beautiful, anonymous lovemaking with him in the sea by the light of a full moon. 9 months later, Elena gave birth to Luna, but never managed to find Lorenzo. Carlos was the stepfather of Belen, who disappeared after she unwittingly caused the death of Luna. As she hears more about the past of her two new house mates, Lucia is reminded of the book Lorenzo was writing, a tale about a journey into a dark, deep past that brought on his depression. Soon, the lines between fact and fiction begin to fall apart.

Firstly,poster of film and the title is so true and so misconcepting that if you willing to watch that movie because of that two,I'm sorry for you.Main actors and actresses are really good and carry the film with the most realistic and emotional way.All of them.Although script is compelling,with symbolism and flashbacks,it is obvious that it is well-written and don't lose it's affect till the end.And the most dense and strong instinct of human,sexuality is one of the most strongest,natural and witty equipment of film.It also makes film more from inside of normal life.And it symbolizes the affection of people and bonding.In short,It is one of the greatest film of Spanish Cinema with unique patterns.

I have seen one other film by this guy and consider it one of the very best. This is even better if possible, an achievement in cinematic vocabulary. I posit that he's one of a handful of filmmakers currently innovating the cinematic narrative, maybe even one of only two. Welles, Tarkovsky, Resnais, Ruiz, he belongs in this celebrated company of filmmakers; where the effort is not just to animate a part of an overall world that we experience as our narrative, but rise to the level where narratives are engineered and see is there an author or fate perhaps chronicling the whole. And do we live in the midst of images randomly spun around us or is there pattern and gravity in the gears.I suppose this one in particular was not given any leeway from the critics because of how sexually frank. It's difficult to handle sex, it seems to pull in another direction than we're used to with film. It's okay to be emotional in the presence of strangers, in a dark hall, but to be aroused? The manipulation goes too far it would seem.This is not about sex or Lucia however any more than 2001 is about a monolith, Blowup about a photograph or Kane about a sled. It is about you and the love of your life. Now she could be any one of the three women here, maybe all of them at once. Naturally there's going to be sex, playful, exciting sex at first caress. And later more sinister as we give into fantasy that we know is wrong. You are the author turning complicated life with these women into a novel about sex and hurt. Maybe she is really a single woman and you have written her in three parts to be able to handle the depth of feeling. All three listen in some way to what your part is about them. All three wish to intimately know and understand how your gears turn.Turns out you have increasing pain and darkness welling up inside of you that must be kept secret else the world comes tumbling down, a secret that you fathered. But since you are an author and pretty good at that, hence familiar with shifting characters inside a narrative that shifts as they move, you know you have to write deeper than you can immediately make sense of: so you write your novel the ordinary way, a melodrama about love that hurts, but with one caveat: there's a hole at the end that takes you right back to some part in the middle. The hole is in a rocky, windswept island that is claimed is not attached to any sea floor, it just heaves this way and that with the winds. Lucia falls in the hole, and comes out the other end as fragments of what we presume is a whole story, a whole life read one way through. We assume we're seeing things as they happened. But are we watching from her end? Her end as she reads the story from behind a screen late at night? Or as the other reads it from another screen? As the man tells it? As it happened? As anyone of these people is remembering it happened? As he imagines on his deathbed it did? It doesn't matter. This is your ploy. You have written your personal drama in a way that lets you sink behind your small narrative and there be assured by a greater realization: this is the way the world turns. You have lost and found again and it's all part of the cycle. And then it starts again from the middle.Something to meditate upon.

I got this film as a couples movie for my wife who is away for when she got back. It was worth the chance as from Spain rather than Orange Valley CA. Having just watched it to see if it was OK I was really captivated and will need to watch it again to get all the nuances. The acting was top notch as well. You don't need a wife when the film is this good. Only kidding Gaynor! Sort of reminds me of Betty Blue, another good example why European cinema can hit the target always when it comes to this sort of thing.Excellent work.Andy