Living in a big house, which he claims eh needs, Félix (Andoni Gracia)
feels first and most foremost one thing: The emptiness his ex Vera
(Mónica López) left behind when she left him. And this emptiness is now
filled up with all kinds of different voices Félix thinks he hears.
Then one day, a stranger stops by his house and asks if he could make a
phonecall. Félix gives the stranger the privacy to make the call, but
then all of a sudden the stranger is gone, and Félix is by no means sure
he as left the house. Félix searches the house, armed, and he has the
police search the house, but neither he nor the police can find anyone,
and the only clues he has got for the stranger's presence are very vague
indeed (like a moist towel and such).
Eventually he goes so far that he calls his ex over, and Vera, who sees
him as helpless as he is, feels drawn to him once again and they end up
having sex ... but in the middle of the night, Félix all of a sudden
thinks he hears her talking to someone else, and thinks this other person
is the stranger living in his house. They get into a fight, and Vera
leaves for good ...
Eventually, Félix gets so scared of the stranger that he dares not
sleep in his house but sleeps in his car. The next day he decides to take
care of the stranger and packs a gun. And really, this time he runs across
someone, takes a shot at him and wounds him. Then he locks the stranger in
the house to die ...
Later, Félix shows a sketch of the stranger he made to two children,
who identify him as Martin (Agustí Villaronga), a guy who lives in the
neighbourhood. So Félix breaks into Martin's house to investigate ... but
is almost surprised by Martin's wheelchair-bound wife Claudia (again
Mónica López) and her best friend Bruno (Francesc Garrido) and manages
to hide only just, overhearing them talking and learning that Martin has
gone missing two days ago. When Bruno leaves, Félix, who has no place to
go, since the stranger is still dieing in his house, decides to stay at
Claudia's place because he figures it can't be difficult to hide from a
wheelchair-bound woman ... and soon enough, he does exactly what he
thought the4 stranger has done in his house: living at the place hiding
from its inhabitant but taking part in her life. Soon enough, he starts to
regularly fall in love with Claudia, who doesn't even know of his
presence. However, she suspects something and calls the police, but like
at Félix' place, the police can't find anybody here either (mainly
because the house is way too big to properly search.
At her birthday party, Félix eventually shows himself to Claudia,
making her believe that he is one of the guests, but when he tries to chat
her up, he is actually freaking her out a bit. When the party is over,
Félix of course does not leave but hides ... until he hears Claudia and
Bruno starting to make love ... which makes him so jealous that he
accidently breaks a vase to interrupt them, but ultimately he is seen by
Bruno, and the two men get into a fight, ending when Bruno locks Félix
into the basement. Thing is, Bruno and Claudia think Félix is Claudia's
husband Martin, who seems to have been quite an asshole, and the two
decide to kill Martin, now that they have locked him up in the basement
... but ultimately things develop quite differently when, while they try
to do Félix in, the basement caves in burying both Bruno and Claudia
under the rubble. Only Félix survives, but he finds the door to the
outside blocked ... but also finds a secret passageway, and in that
passageway the corpse of Martin, who seems to have been desperate to find
a way out of the basement after his wife locked the basement door shut
days ago. And it seems Martin has found something, as he had already
started to tear down the wall to Félix basement (which explains the
noises Félix has heard lately. Only he never got into Félix basement,
which leaves the question open, whom did Félix shoot at and leave to die
?
Why it was Vera, who came back to Félix to tell him she's pregnant ...
but thanks to him she now had to die with her unborn child ...
Very nice thriller that remains suspenseful throughout without
resorting to misplaced Hitchcock quotes, that tells a very original story
on a tried-and-true premise and that features quite a few highly unusual
plottwists ... and what's more important, the film is highly entertaining.
Recommendation.
|