Thoughts on Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (aka Átame!)

On Criterion in March, I watched Pedro Almodóvar’s 1989 film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (aka Átame!), a dark romantic comedy where Antonio Banderas plays a recently released patient from a mental institution named Ricky, and abducts an actress named Marina (Victoria Abril), holding her hostage in her home because he is obsessed with her, especially after a brief one-night-stand they had a year ago when he had escaped from the institution. It basically takes a horror movie premise of stalking and obsession and plays it up in a darkly comedic way, where it’s likable because the two leads are charismatic and attractive (like how Overboard has a somewhat similar premise but gets a pass because of the great chemistry between the leads), but knowing it’s messed up at the same time, especially when it starts getting into Stockholm Syndrome territory.

I did like this a lot, and I hadn’t seen Almodóvar older films, so it was fun seeing Banderas in an early role, and I like seeing how the warm colors just pop in Almodóvar’s films. I liked the busy environment of the the film shoot where Marina is working, like her sister and best friend Lola (Loles León) who looks out for her, and the eccentric and vibrant director (Francisco Rabal) who’s a paraplegic from a stroke. Rossy de Palma has a small part as a drug dealer who Banderas tries to score from to get morphine for Marina’s toothache, which she needs stronger drugs for because she was an addict and painkillers are too mild for her.

I do like the humor, like him thinking getting softer rope and tape is him being “nice” to her while he’s holding her hostage (there’s a brief scene where he’s buying the tape and mentioning that “his girl” would like it better because it’s softer, the clerk missing the implications), or him trying to woo her by writing out a map of his life via a subway line, to seem more sympathetic as an orphan put through the system, and romanticizing his interest in her instead of as a stalker obsession, especially since she had previously done pornographic films and could attract stalkers like him.

I felt for her during the movie, and kept wanting her to escape, and felt like she mainly fell for him because he’s handsome and charismatic, which felt very surface to me. It still felt like he had a fixation on her because of her looks, and didn’t really get to know her through the film, just seeing what he wants to see. The movie ends with them being happily together, whereas I felt he would still be an abusive and possessive person, now that his obsession and kidnapping had “won” her. So I liked the movie, and liked the chemistry between them, and felt it was a messed-up romance in a somewhat enjoyable way to watch as a movie fantasy.

ETA: on reading IMDB reviews, the general theme of this movie is that it is a satirical farce making fun of marriage and courtship, like exaggerating it to a ridiculous degree, with kidnapping and forcing someone to love you, which does make sense in a more over the top way.