“The Skin I Live In” is the most disquieting film I’ve seen in years. Don’t let that stop you from seeing it, though. It’s also the masterpiece we’ve long awaited from Pedro Almodovar. The Spanish director, a fixture of the arthouse, has finally found a way to channel his love of melodrama into something deeper. “The Skin I Live In” is a studied exploration of identity, love, loss and revenge, a film with real feeling. It’s quite an accomplishment, given that Almodovar didn’t dispense with the over-the-top machinations either.
Perhaps the biggest epiphany here, however, is that the film gives us a completely revitalized Antonio Banderas, working once again in his native Spanish. Banderas is Robert Ledgard, an eminent plastic surgeon and researcher who has turned his Toledo villa into an experimental clinic.
