Two stories stuck together like the wreckage of crashed cars.

Rating: 4/10 (23 April 2005)

I've seen both versions and they share the same peculiar flaw. The first two thirds set up a situation in one set of terms. The last third introduces a completely new set of terms as an "explanation". It seems in the Spanish version that the director set up a plot that he only belatedly realised the audience would be totally unable to understand. An essentially metaphysical scenario. Then he panicked and added on a completely different entity, essentially science-fiction, as an easy "explanation". Then the American version directly copied the entire package, importing the basic flaw.
The work contains a great deal of promising material. For example, how Cameron Diaz manages in spite of her gorgeousness to depict a somehow loathsome character, which I at first thought to be only "me" before I realised that it was intentional. But the fundamental disjuncture between the two aspects of the film is gigantic, like a broken spine, that it essentially scuppers it. It's like one of those cars made by welding the front of one to the back of another and then re-sprayed as a single item. Under scrutiny, the join becomes obvious.