Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Ricky, a 23-year-old psychiatric patient, has been deemed cured and is released from a psych hospital. Until then, he has been the lover of the hospital's female director. An orphan, free, and alone, his goal is to have a normal life with actress Marina Osorio, a former porn star and recovering drug addict, with whom he once slept during an escape from the asylum. At a studio, Marina is filming The Midnight Phantom, a Euro-horror film about a mutilated, masked muscleman in love with her character. The film is directed by Máximo Espejo, an old director who uses a wheelchair after a stroke. Máximo is a mentor to Marina, and threatens to throw out a journalist who mentions the words "porn" and "junkie" in her presence. Máximo is secretly attracted to Marina and plans to enjoy what could be his last experience of directing a female lead. When Ricky comes to the set, he steals some items, including the keys to Marina's apartment, and becomes an unwelcome presence in her life. Ricky, while wearing a wig, does a handstand to try to capture her attention, but Marina does not remember him and dismisses him. After filming the last scene, Marina prepares to change for the post-shoot party. Ricky follows her to her apartment. When she answers the door, Ricky forces his way in. He grabs her and headbutts Marina to silence her when she screams; he tapes her mouth and binds her with rope. Marina wakes up with a toothache which normal painkillers do not relieve, as she is addicted to stronger drugs. Ricky says that he captured her, so that when she gets to know him better, she will fall in love and they will get married and have children. Marina declares she will never love him, enraged at being handcuffed, gagged and lashed to the bed. However, Ricky remains determined to win her heart. Marina is shocked and in pain, and persuades Ricky to take her to a doctor who can give her the necessary painkillers. When Ricky leaves her alone with the doctor, she cannot communicate her plight. They cannot obtain the drugs in the pharmacy, so Ricky tries to buy them on the black market. However, rather than paying the street price, he attacks the dealer to steal the tablets. During the wrap party, Marina's sister Lola, who is the film's assistant director, steals the show with a musical number. Worried about her sister's disappearance, Lola visits Marina's apartment and leaves a note. To avoid being discovered, Ricky moves Marina to her next door neighbor's apartment, which is empty, but the owner left his keys with Lola so she can water his plants while he is away during the summer. In the street again, Ricky is spotted by the dealer whom he attacked. Ricky is then beaten, robbed and left unconscious. During his absence, Marina tries to escape from her captivity. However, when Ricky returns covered with blood and cuts, she notices his vulnerability and devotion to her. She cares for him, cleaning and sterilizing his wounds, and is struck by the realization that she has fallen in love with her captor. They eventually have sex and decide to visit Ricky's hometown. When he is about to leave to steal a car for the trip, Marina, who still considers herself his prisoner, tells him to keep her tied up so that she will not try to escape. However, in Ricky's absence, Lola re-enters the apartment and discovers Marina tied up and rescues her. Marina informs Lola that she is in love with her captor. Lola is astonished, but once convinced, she agrees to drive Marina to Ricky's hometown. They find him in the ruins of his family house in a deserted village, then the three climb into Lola's car to return to the city. When Lola accepts Ricky as a member of the family, saying that she will find Ricky a job within the week, Marina begins to cry, and they drive off together, singing "Resistiré" ("I will prevail") in unison. ==Cast==

Casting Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! marked Almodóvar's breaking-up with his longtime star, Carmen Maura, in a rift that took many years to heal. In any case, at the age of 44, Maura was too old to play the protagonist, a role that demanded a younger actress. The film was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with Victoria Abril, whom Almodóvar had previously considered for the role of Cristal, the prostitute neighbor in What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984), and Candela, the model fleeing a relationship with a terrorist in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988). and was already a well-established actress, identified with strong female characters. The male lead was played by Banderas, in his fifth and most important collaboration with Almodóvar. Almodóvar has consistently denied that the ropes within Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! have any links with sadomasochism. There is no erotic charge to the ropes and gags. Bride kidnapping is also a central plot device in the Hollywood musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). Genre Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! combines two different film genres: romantic comedy and horror film. In spite of some dark elements, it can be described as a romantic comedy, and the director's clearest love story. Almodóvar described the film as a "romantic fairy tale". Ricky, in his violent courtship of Marina follows, in an exaggerated manner, the path of the romantic film genre like those made popular in the late 1950s by Doris Day with various male film stars: Pillow Talk (1959) with Rock Hudson, Move Over, Darling (1963) with James Garner, and That Touch of Mink (1962) with Cary Grant. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is also rooted on the tradition of the horror film genre. Máximo has a poster of the former in his editing room, and Marina watches the latter while Ricky is away. Almodóvar admired Morricone's soundtracks for westerns, but found the music for Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! conventional and uninspiring, too similar to Morricone's work for the film Frantic, and used only half of Morricone's music. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! prominently features two songs. The film closes with the theme "Resistiré" ("I Will Resist") by Dúo Dinámico, a Spanish pop duo from the 1960s, suggesting Marina's happy resistance to Ricky's unconventional courtship. The wrap party scene breaks the hardship of the kidnapping scene. It presents Marina's sister Lola, played by Loles León, singing the bolero "Canción del Alma", a song popularized in Latin America by Alfredo Sadel. ==Reception==

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Almodóvar's eighth film, was completed in late 1989. in early 1990, was inauspicious. The projector broke down and in the following press conference Almodóvar, whose films have not been well understood in Germany, Lluis Bonet, writing in La Vanguardia, called the film "a terrible tender love story", agreeing with the director that the best scene was that in which Marina, initially held hostage by Ricky against her will, finally asks to be tied up by him so she will not be tempted to flee from the love he has successfully provoked in her. Rossy de Palma, who plays a drug dealer in the film, explained that the film's kidnapping was not to be imitated in real life and was only justified by the "exceptional nature of the characters". In the United States, the film was met with opposition from rating agencies and the public due to a lengthy sex scene and two sequences in which Marina and later her sister Lola sit on the toilet to urinate. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 32 reviews, with an average score of 6.20/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! undermines its own effectiveness with an excess of camp, but writer-director Pedro Almodóvar and an attractive cast make it all worth watching." On Metacritic the film has a score of 55% based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Box office Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! grossed $4,087,361 at the North American box office. ==Controversy==

There was a legal battle over the decision by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which determines film ratings in the United States, to give Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! an X rating, which, by that point, had become heavily associated with pornography. This marginalized its distribution and reduced its chance of box-office success. Miramax, the film's distribution company in North America, filed a lawsuit against the MPAA over the X rating. When the case came to court in New York, it gave rise to a general debate on cinema, censorship, and sexuality in the United States. ==Home video==

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! was released on Region 1 DVD in Spanish with English subtitles. It includes the film's trailer, but there are no other extras. The Region 2 DVD, released in the UK, includes an interview of Almodóvar by Banderas, footage of the premiere in Madrid, poster and still galleries, and trailers. On 19 August 2014, the film was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in the United States. A new documentary produced by Criterion was included among the extras, including some that were ported over from previous releases. ==References==