Eduardo Noriega is certainly one of the best contemporary European actors;he shines in this movie and mesmerizes you in a way few actors can do ;Producer Amenabar had cast him in " Tesis" and "Abre Los Ojos " ,two major works ,and Noriega even appears on the photographs in "The others/Los Ostros""El Mal Ajeno " lacks perhaps Amenabar's rigor and the first scenes with the doctor's daughter's are a bit heavy-handed today;but the rest is,if a little confusing,interesting from start to finish .The subject of the healer has already been treated ,but never before as in this work,without a hint at religion or magic .And if there is something vaguely "religious" ,it deals with the old testament :"eye for an eye ,tooth for a tooth" ...."a life for a life" .That might explain why we see the doctor dead for a few seconds .The story of the little sister run over and the affair which follows it borrows from old melodramas,but brings it all back home .And the ending makes sense ,if you pay attention to details:-The young doctor shows Noriega his daughter's blood test :"leukemia" he says; but the father ,against all odds ,comments :"it's nothing!" -The injection-Sara,near the patient's bed,smiles sweetly to Pilar ,and her face reflects kindness and compassion...as she holds the girl's hand.As an user cleverly pointed out,all comments should be written in the conditional tense;but even if some elements elude us,emotion survives.

The direction is nearly flawless, the photography impressive, the acting professional, and the musical score consists of subdued strings -- no heavenly choirs or triumphant fanfares when a patient's life is unexpectedly saved. So why does it all seem unfocused? Diego is a doctor in a hospital in Spain. He's supposed to have lost compassion for those of his patients who are in pain, although I didn't see him as any more or less bored than any other doc.At any rate, a man rushes his pregnant and dying girl friend into the hospital. Diego tells him that it's unlikely that either the girl or the baby will survive. The man pulls a gun and plugs Diego, before touching Diego's hands, then he eats his own pistola.The man is dead and Diego severely wounded. They hurry Diego to his own hospital and try to stabilize him. There is a confusing shot of Diego lying on the gurney with his eyes staring at the camera and a sheet is pulled over his head, suggesting Diego has given up the ghost. But evidently he hasn't. What, then, did the hand of the potter shake? Diego recovers and thereafter things get a little weird. Diego resumes his duties and those of his patients who are on their way out begin to remit. However, Diego himself loses a family member he loves. And then, as the other patients do well, his daughter contracts an unnamed disease that looks like AIDS. And his wife develops something that sounds like leukemia.Diego appears to reach the same conclusion I did. He can heal magically with his hands -- an ability possibly passed on to him by the suicide -- but in doing so he must lose someone he loves. Quid pro quo.I filled that summary with conditionals -- "appears to", "evidently," and so on -- for a reason. The reason is that I wasn't at all sure I had a handle on what was going on. I don't know what the hell that drunken blond was doing in there. It's not exactly laid out in schematic fashion. It was disturbing enough that for a moment I thought I was stroking out myself.The lack of focus and clarity aside, it's a good movie -- a hospital drama with supernatural overtones. In America we pride ourselves on having a superlative medical system, and we do, but in Spain the hospitals look just like American hospitals. The staff know what they're doing, expensive CAT scans are readily available, the docs are just as condescending, the nurses equally officious, and the appointments -- the rooms, the appliances, the floors, the scrubs -- are all properly Listerian. If there's a difference between ethos and eidos in American and Spanish hospitals, you'd never knew it from this movie.I won't describe the ending, partly because it involves an heroic act of self sacrifice and partly because I'm not sure what happens.

When The Exorcist was premiered it seems that its impact on believers was so great that people in the audience fainted, run out of the theater screaming, there were ambulances outside to take care of the sick, etc. This movie doesn't go that far of course, but I imagine that what they call "sensitive audiences" for rating purposes would view this film with awesome respect for what is going on within the story.I don't believe in anything so, my point of view lets me see this movie from a "naturalistic" perspective, no supernatural phenomena for me.I rented this movie because I thought Alejandro Amenabar was its director, he isn't, he was one of the producers, but even so, the technical part (photography, color, editing, sound, music, etc.) is absolutely perfect, silky the pacing, a pleasure to the eye and to the ear and the discovery of a new promising name in directing. The acting impeccable, and good entertainment too. Not bad for the price of a rental fee.

Dr. Diego Sanz is a doctor working at a large Spanish hospital. He specializes in pain management. This man has seen so much suffering around him that, in a way, he has become insensitive about the world around him. His own life is a mess. He is in a loveless marriage to Pilar, a nurse. They have a grown daughter, Ainhoa who is experiencing on her own flesh all the unhappiness around her.After an attempt of suicide by Sara, one of his patients, Diego's life begins to unravel. The boyfriend of the woman shoots the doctor in the parking lot, something that will make Diego experience something of what the people in his care have to deal on a daily basis.This is the first film of Oskar Santos, a protégé of Alejandro Almenabar. The problem with this film lies in the screenplay by Daniel Sanchez Arevalo that experiments with a mixture of styles that does not help the film achieve its noble intentions. On the other hand, credit must go to Mr. Santos for the performances from his cast, especially Eduardo Noriega, who brings a maturity not seldom found in the Spanish cinema. Unfortunately, some of the other cast members do not fare as well because of the way their characters have been written.Another strong asset in the film is the crisp cinematography by Yosu Inchaustegui, who shows intelligence and style behind the camera.