Biutiful

From a romantic and even beautiful idea about a man struggling to set his affairs in order and leave this existence peacefully comes this dreadful portrait that's anything but Biutiful. Like a couple of Valiums dropped in a warm beer, this movie drags you through the winter cold side streets of Barcelona with downer stories that for the first time in a González Iñarritu's film are interconnected through the main character rather than by some random steer of the wheel or an accidental sighting of some TV set. Like an offspring of Paul Haggis's Crash (Which with all credit due is like an offspring of Iñarritu's Amores Perros), Biutiful retakes the illegal immigrant crisis through the lens of exploitation... along with facing death, raising children and being a medium or ghost whisperer of sorts or something...Javier Bardem plays pain with dignity well worth palms and nominations.

I never cease to think there's always too much on Iñarritu's plate, and whatever crisis is going on never reaches either full importance or emotion as it is dragged to level with a whole bunch of things going on around it. For the downer it is intended to be it is well achieved, the acting, the cinematography, even the music work perfectly towards this inevitable theme of death, but at the same time there is this subplot that carries on a romantic notion of dying and going elsewhere, and going in peace, holding us down to do the right thing while we're still here.

Although I feel a Best Foreign Language Film nomination for the Oscar is a bit of a stretch, I believe the idea holds firmly through and the acting is precise, it might leave you an aftertaste of something if you manage not to fall asleep through it.

Two thumbs up, with their corresponding indexes pointing towards my head (if you manage to picture that)... But don't pull the trigger just yet. Watch it (or 2.6 stars out of five).