Even by his outrageous standards, Pedro Almodóvar’s story of love, lust and kidnapping is wild, furiously funny and more than a little kinky.
Fresh out of a psychiatric institution, young Ricki (Antonio Banderas) desires a normal life –wife, family, job. He even has a plan of how to achieve this: by kidnapping B-movie star Marina (Victoria Abril) and making her fall in love with him. Despite a rocky start, Marina begins to feel that the ties (literally) binding her have softened her feelings towards Ricki.
Featuring one of the most unconventional cinematic couples of all time, Almodóvar’s film is a wickedly erotic parody of heterosexual marriage, in the form of a Stockholm Syndrome comedy. Following his breakout international hit Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown – the two films were shot on the same apartment set – _Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! _ showed the filmmaker’s unwillingness to pander to mainstream tastes. His fifth collaboration with Antonio Banderas – the two wouldn’t work together again until The Skin I Live In (2011) – the film was also a breakthrough for Victoria Abril, who would go on to star in Almodóvar’s High Heels and Kika.
