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Open Your Eyes opened doors in Hollywood for its Spanish director, Alejandro Amenabar. Amenabar and screenwriter Mateo Gil created an odd and compelling film that is by turns unsettling and somewhat silly. The film is at its strongest when dramatizing how the narcissistic womanizer Cesar (Eduardo Noriega, who also starred in Amenabar's first film, Thesis) deals with his disfigurement. His obsession with his appearance is so severe that he even stops to look in the mirror while fleeing the scene of a brutal murder. Certainly, the makeup job makes the once handsome Cesar look somewhat monstrous, but no one is nearly as repulsed by his looks as he is. The audience is in a position to recognize that Cesar's hideous disfigurement is an accurate reflection of the ugliness inside of him, having seen the way he's treated his best friend, Pelayo (Fele Martinez), and his erstwhile girlfriend, Nuria (Najwa Nimri of Before Night Falls). The interchangeableness of Nuria and Sofia (Penelope Cruz) in his "dream" life (if it is a dream) suggests a clear analogy for Cesar's archaic view of women, and further intimates that Cesar is subconsciously aware of, and repulsed by, his inner self. It's clear that even if he is whole physically, that ugliness will find a way to manifest itself. The film works brilliantly on this metaphorical level, but its science fiction underpinnings are not quite convincing. The ending is entertaining in a roundabout way, but its fancifulness dampens some of the movie's intriguing power. The film was not widely distributed in the U.S., but it got the attention of actor Tom Cruise, who in turn showed it to writer/director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), and the two collaborated on a Hollywood remake, Vanilla Sky. Cruise also produced Amenabar's first Hollywood production, The Others.