is a 1989 Spanish black romantic comedy film co-written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Victoria Abril and Antonio Banderas alongside Loles León, Francisco Rabal, Julieta Serrano, María Barranco, and Rossy de Palma.

The plot follows a recently released psychiatric patient who kidnaps an actress in order to make her fall in love with him.

An orphan, free, and alone, his goal is to have a normal life with actress Marina Osorio, a former porn star and recovering drug addict, whom he once slept with during an escape from the asylum.

Máximo is a mentor to Marina, and threatens to throw out a journalist who mentions the words "porn" and "junkie" in her presence.

Máximo is secretly attracted to Marina and plans to enjoy what could be his last experience of directing a female lead.

When Ricky comes to the set, he steals some items, including the keys to Marina's apartment, and becomes an unwelcome presence in her life.

During the wrap party, Marina's sister Lola, who is the film's assistant director, steals the show with a musical number.

To avoid being discovered, Ricky moves Marina to her next door neighbor's apartment, which is empty, but the owner left his keys with Lola so she can water his plants while he is away during the summer.

When he is about to leave to steal a car for the trip, Marina, who still considers herself his prisoner, tells him to keep her tied up so that she will not try to escape.

They find him in the ruins of his family house in a deserted village, then the three climb into Lola's car to return to the city.

marked Almodóvar's breaking-up with his longtime star, Carmen Maura, in a rift that took many years to heal.

[4] The film was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with Victoria Abril, whom Almodóvar had previously considered for the role of Cristal, the prostitute neighbor in What Have I Done to Deserve This?

[2] Abril had a cameo role in Law of Desire,[5] and was already a well-established actress, identified with strong female characters.

Rossy de Palma, the actress of Picassoesque appearance discovered by Almodóvar in 1986, plays the small role of the drug dealer.

It is a tale not of kinky sex, but of a sweeter human bondage, of loose ends tied into lover's knots.

In the play Life Is a Dream, by Calderon de la Barca, the main character is Segismundo, a half-man, half-beast who has been imprisoned for his whole twenty years; once released into the world, he finds that his violence is tamed by female beauty.

has some similarities with the film The Collector (1965), directed by William Wyler, in which a butterfly specialist abducts a young woman in order to add her to his collection.

[12] Ricky, in his violent courtship of Marina follows, in an exaggerated manner, the path of the romantic film genre like those made popular in the late 1950s by Doris Day with various male film stars: Pillow Talk (1959) with Rock Hudson, Move Over, Darling (1963) with James Garner, and That Touch of Mink (1962) with Cary Grant.

is an extension of The Midnight Phantom and both films mix variant versions of Beauty and the Beast that are within the genres of horror and romance.

[14] The soundtrack was composed by Ennio Morricone in the style of a thriller, and is reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

It presents Marina's sister Lola, played by Loles León, singing the bolero "Canción del Alma", a song popularized in Latin America by Alfredo Sadel.

[21] Lluis Bonet, writing in La Vanguardia, called the film "a terrible tender love story", agreeing with the director that the best scene was that in which Marina, initially held hostage by Ricky against her will, finally asks to be tied up by him so she will not be tempted to flee from the love he has successfully provoked in her.

[3] Critic Javier Maqua in Cinco Días called Marina's request evidence of "the greatest intensity of love".

[10] In the United States, the film was met with opposition from rating agencies and the public due to a lengthy sex scene and two sequences in which Marina and later her sister Lola sit on the toilet to urinate.

Eventually released unrated, the film was decried by feminists and women's advocacy groups for its sadomasochist overtones and portrayal of successful female abduction and abuse.

Modern audiences have criticized Almodóvar for "... condon[ing] Ricky's behavior, suggesting that it's okay to brutalize and subjugate a woman so long as one is allegedly motivated by sincere passion".

undermines its own effectiveness with an excess of camp, but writer-director Pedro Almodóvar and an attractive cast make it all worth watching.

[26] There was a legal battle over the decision by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which determines film ratings in the United States, to give Tie Me Up!

When the case came to court in New York, it gave rise to a general debate on cinema, censorship, and sexuality in the United States.

The Region 2 DVD, released in the UK, includes an interview of Almodóvar by Banderas, footage of the premiere in Madrid, poster and still galleries, and trailers.