With SEGUNDA PIEL or Second Skin Gerardo Vera joins the ranks of such luminaries as Pedro Almadovar in achieving flawless vignettes of Spanish storytelling. He has assembled a cast of some of the finest actors on the screen today and manages to present a wholly credible story of a gender crisis love triangle.
Javier Bardem is inimitable as a sensitively wrought gay surgeon in love with a bisexual man (again, in a brilliant performance by Jordi Molla) who is married to a wise if fragile woman (sensitively acted by Ariadna Gil). Bardem's best friend is a fellow surgeon (the wondrous Cecilia Roth) who helps him through the highs and lows of his love affair with a man who is conflicted to the extreme. To tell more of the story would be to deprive the viewer of the impact. Suffice it to say that with the consistently excellent performances by this stunning quartet under the ever sensitive eye of Vera, this is a film to see again and again. Why is it that American actors have so much difficulty playing gay men? These two Spanish actors, coming from a society that is machismo, still make their lovers wholly believable and sensusal.
Bravo!