10 Movie Plot Twists That Will TRAUMATIZE You
5. The Skin I Live In - Vera's True Identity
Pedro Almodovar is one of our greatest living filmmakers and his movies, with their extravagant colour palettes, non-linear editing and melodramatic storylines, are basically a genre of their own at this point. Another thing that sets his work apart is his penchant for effed-up plot twists, and he saved his nastiest one to date for 2011's The Skin I Live In, the closest thing to a horror film that he has made.
The Skin I Live In stars Antonio Banderas as the mysterious plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard, who has lost both his wife and daughter to suicide and is keeping a woman named Vera (Elena Anaya) captive at his house. But who is she? And why does she look exactly like Ledgard's late wife? The truth is harrowing beyond belief.
After Ledgard's daughter had a breakdown at a party, Ledgard saw a young man named Vicente (Jan Cornet) fleeing and incorrectly concludes that he assaulted his daughter. Following the young woman's suicide, Ledgard kidnapped Vicente, subjected him to a forced sex-change and then spent six years transforming him into a replica of his late wife.
Well, Almodovar's work has featured many shocking plot twists involving taboo subjects like sexual assault and incest, but nothing comes close to this level of depravity. As a result, The Skin I Live In - though a really great film - might just end up being one of those where you're unsure if you love it or hate it. In the end, it'll probably be a bit of both.