Too didactic to work.

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Whilst I do agree with some of the points you make, certainly there are some holes in the plot and it is overly preachy, I don't think you can deny that Amenabar achieves his purpose quite effectively. Like all good film makers he presents us with the issues and yes admittedly he does so with a certain amount of prejudice, but I think it works; the scenes of the many hospital patients infatuated with the images they see on their screens emphasises his argument, our obsession with violence and indeed self-gratification is a worry, the didacticism is useful, its provocative.

i think what amenabar is trying to say is actually pretty clear. ditto what the person above me said: it's about violence and voyeurism. angela is curious about and chema is obsessed with violence and pain. however, when they experience it firsthand (chema kills a man; angela is nearly killed), it is no longer appealing. while by the end of the movie they are totally turned off to it, the general population remains enthralled. because most people have no idea what actual physical suffering is like, we hold on to our affinity for the violent and macabre. in terms of plausibility, not so much. but what horror/thriller film is plausible? very few. (admittedly, the ones that are tend to be the best, but they are few and far between, and i have no problem with kind of outrageous situations.) in any case, i enjoyed watching it. the thing that gets me is the horribly tacky 90s music. bleh.

I found the film neither intellectual, arty nor annoyingly preachy. I had more problems with Natural Born Killers being both preachy about violence in the media and at the same time hypocritical for exploiting the violence. Tesis has a message, but it's subtle enough not to get in the way of an entertaining film. It's slightly flawed, but not bad at all for a director's first feature.