A man faces hardship in modern-dayBarcelona. WithJavier Bardem. Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu. (2:28) R: Nudity, violence. At the Sunshine. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Uxbal (Javier Bardem), our guide through Alejandro González Iñárritu's bleak"Biutiful,"is a frazzled man at the end of a hard life.
A denizen of Barcelona's lower depths, he's forced to make ends meet by doing sleazy work for black marketeers and trafficking immigrants for sweatshop owners. Meanwhile, his estranged wife— a streetwalker and addict — can't be trusted with their two young children, whom he loves deeply (the awkward title is how his youngest misspells"Beautiful").
A diagnosis of prostate cancer gives Uxbal months to live, and while his crisis causes guilt and fear, he's prepared, for better or worse. That's because Uxbal can speak to the dead, a talent the movie presents without fuss, as if it were just one more burden poor Uxbal has to shoulder.
That ability to commune with spirits is as hackneyed here as it was earlier this fall whenMatt Damondid it inClint Eastwood's"Hereafter."Luckily,"Biutiful"has more on its mind, though its squalid atmosphere and characters are hard to live with for two and a half hours. Still, its portrait of a man with nothing who must deal with the end of everything while trying to safeguard his children has moments of power and poetry.
The biggest problem is that Iñárritu, whose hardscrabble films ("Amores perros,""21 Grams"and"Babel") have decreased in payoff despite his rich humanity, still packs in all the melodrama he can. At least"Biutiful,"unlike his others, isn't torn between several stories that finally interweave. Here, it's all Bardem, and this great actor's careworn face and sensitive presence counts for a lot. He ultimately can't save the soul of"Biutiful,"but he makes the journey easier.
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