La Piel que Habito

La Piel Que Habito (known in the US as The Skin I Live In) is a Pedro Almodovar film about a mysterious woman undergoing equally mysterious skin transplant procedures by a secretive plastic surgeon as part of his research into "a skin that accepts a caring touch, yet resists all harmful attacks." But why is she held in a locked room, almost prison-like, without any contact from the outside world? Why is the doctor so adamant about keeping her hidden away? How did the two ever meet, and why is she being subjected to such procedures, which seem to be against her will?


 * Adaptation Distillation: The character of Alex, instrumental in the book, has apparently been reworked into Zeca.
 * Arc Words: Am I complete?
 * Beauty to Beast: . It worked, for a while....
 * Becoming the Mask: Played with and.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Black and Gray Morality: There is not one innocent party in the plot, except.
 * Bloodless Carnage: . Slightly subverted when   and when.
 * BLAM Episode: the arrival of the man in a tiger costume, aka Zeca, looks like it is one, but actually manages to start the plot.
 * Broken Bird: Vera. Finding out why and how is the crux of the plot.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Yoga, the head sculptures Vera makes   and a woman's dress.
 * Creepy Housekeeper: Marilia.
 * : Robert.
 * Despair Event Horizon: Norma, when . Robert, when . Finally,.
 * Determinator: Vicente's mother, and.
 * Different As Night and Day: What Marilia initially says Robert and Zeca are, with one child being bright and obedient and growing up to be a famous doctor, and the other going off to deal drugs at age seven and turning out as a killer and robber. However, by her own admission,.
 * : this movie might as well be called : The Movie.
 * Driven to Madness: . Twice.
 * Driven to Suicide: . The incident traumatized the latter severely, and . Later on, . In present time,.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: Not only was  but   was also used as a Guinea Pig for experiments with transgenic skin.
 * Faux Affably Evil:
 * : Subverted:.
 * Flash Back: They reveal.
 * Film of the Book: The movie is based upon the Thierry Jonquet novel Mygale.
 * Foreshadowing: Marilia chides Robert for.
 * Vera   at the end of the movie.
 * Handsome Lech: Vicente makes (harmless and pointless) passes at Cristina, his lesbian coworker, and he's quite attractive to Norma and her teenage friends.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: . To add insult to injury,.
 * Idiot Ball: Marilia knew full well what kind of man Zeca was, and she knew that Robert didn't want anyone coming anywhere near Vera, yet she . Robert giving Vera when he had absolutely no reason to was even worse.
 * I Lied: Vera says this to Robert as she is about to.
 * Innocent Fanservice Girl: After a fashion, Vera. The skin-colored, skintight full-body suit she wears 24/7 gives the appearance that she's naked all the time, and she has no qualms with being fully naked before other people. At first it seems to be a side-effect of the constant skin procedures (which require constant visual examination and treatment,) but it gives a hint that.
 * Ironic Echo: "If you like the dress so much why not wear it yourself?"
 * At the end of the movie,
 * Lie Back and Think of England:.
 * Love Makes You Crazy/Evil: The extent of, which ended up as...
 * Love Makes You Dumb:.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father:.
 * Knight Templar Parent: And how.
 * Mad Scientist: Robert.
 * The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Subverted:.
 * Near-Rape Experience/Date Rape Averted:.
 * Never Found the Body: invokes this when . Possibly, it happens literally with.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:.
 * Punny Name: Unintentional. See Narm for details.
 * Rape and Revenge
 * Rashomon Style: At a friend's wedding, Robert finds evidence that his daughter . Much later on, Vicente's flashback shows that.
 * The Reveal:
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge:  And what.
 * Room Full of Crazy: The endless scribbles and artsy sketches that Vera's room is covered in? They didn't come with the room..
 * Rule of Symbolism
 * Vera's bodysuit, a "second skin" that becomes her identity as much as the one Robert grafts on her.
 * Zeca's tiger outfit, representing the tiger that ceaselessly stalks its pen in order to pounce upon any brief chance at freedom...
 * The present-day plot kicks off during Carnival season, when people go around in masks --temporary identities that they assume (or are forced to assume, if they want to participate in the event,) use to indulge in for a while, and then discard when they return to the real world. Even Zeca states that he wouldn't get to walk around free without his, since there's a warrant for his arrest.
 * "Vera" is a short form of both the name "Verónica" (name derived from the Latin vera icon for "true image") as well as the Spanish word "verdadera," ("[the] true [one]," in the feminine.).
 * Scale of Scientific Sins: Robert's breakthroughs in artificial skin are hailed as nigh-miraculous, until he confides with his superiors that he's using transgenic material from pigs (the animal with tissues closest to humans') to manufacture it. He's immediately chastised for it, since not only is it illegal and banned by the European scientific community, but because it's "unethical."
 * Compounded further when Robert is using a human guinea pig (Vera) for his research, and not mice as he claimed to the medical board. But since said guinea pig, the "transgenic research is banned" part is just a tiny cherry on top of a bigger scientific blasphemy sundae.
 * Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere: Robert's mansion, and Vera's room in it, specifically, act as this.
 * Shout-Out: Many shots, the setting and part of the plot reference heavily Eyes Without a Face. Another part references Frankenstein.
 * Something Only They Would Say: Vera invokes this.
 * Tailor-Made Prison: Vera's room in the mansion. A Gilded Cage it may be, catering to her needs and requests, but it's still custom-made to prevent her escape.
 * Trauma-Induced Amnesia: After Norma.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Vicente
 * He was himself very high, and might not have understood
 * Zeca's robbery partner, who didn't just fail to kill the security cams but allowed them to capture his face when everyone else was wearing ski masks, leading the police to the rest of the gang.
 * He was himself very high, and might not have understood
 * Zeca's robbery partner, who didn't just fail to kill the security cams but allowed them to capture his face when everyone else was wearing ski masks, leading the police to the rest of the gang.