What I want is for you to suffer the way I suffer.
Another week, another Almodóvar. This week it's his 1997 film Live Flesh, which was based on the novel by Ruth Rendell. It's a film that has to get a lot of set-up out of the way before it can get going, opening as it does in 1970 as a young prostitute (Penelope Cruz) goes into labor and gives birth on the way to the hospital on a bus commandeered by her madam (Pilar Bardem). Twenty years later, the baby has grown up to be Liberto Rabal (grandson of Francisco Rabal), an aimless youth whose attempt to keep a date with the drug addict he lost his virginity to the week before (Francesca Neri) has dramatic consequences, not only for them, but also for the policemen -- Javier Bardem and his alcoholic partner Jose Sancho -- who respond to a domestic disturbance call. An armed standoff ensues and, two years later, Rabal is in prison, Bardem is a star wheelchair basketball player (having been paralyzed from the waist down) and a clean-and-sober Neri is his wife. It is at that point that Rabal begins planning to take his revenge on them.
Four years later, Rabal is released from prison and, while he's visiting his mother's grave, has a chance encounter with Bardem and Neri. From there he commences an affair with Sancho's wife (Angela Molina) and volunteers at the children's shelter that Neri runs. In turn, Bardem takes to spying on Rabal and following him around, which leads to some unexpected revelations. As is frequently the case in Almodóvar's films, all of the plots and characters intersect in unusual ways, and his flair for the dramatic is very much in evidence. And the sex scenes are about as steamy as you can get within the bounds of an R rating. (I'm sure they gave the ratings boards a few headaches.) Then again, what else would you expect from a film called Live Flesh?