Biutiful Review: So Much Sadness, So Little Impact

I had my first cinematic experience with Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu way back in 2003 when I laid eyes on and was profoundly moved by his stellar film, 21 Grams. Although dark, and at time to difficult to watch, that film spoke about the greater essence of life and the impact our lives have on others. I thought it was a stunningly beautiful, albeit sad, film and instantly became a fan of this new Mexican auteur and rabidly looked forward to what he would churn out next.

Babel appeared on the scene a few years later and almost equaled 21 Grams in emotional power with its look at how we communicate with the world around us. It therefore goes without saying that I’ve been eagerly anticipating Iñárritu’s latest film, Biutiful, ever since it made a splash at The Cannes Film Festival with star Javier Bardem taking home the Best Actor award there amid exuberant acclaim. More recently it landed Academy Award nominations for both Bardem and the film as a whole for Best Foreign Language Film, which naturally made me even more excited.

Despite all of this hype and acclaim though, I must admit that I walked out of the theatre feeling a little underwhelmed. Is it a bad movie? Not by a long shot. Is it close to being in the ranks of 21 Grams and Babel? Sadly no. Those two films, while being as equally grim as (if not more than) Biutiful, also had moments that lifted them up beyond a mere exercise in suffering. They gave insight into some of the more difficult aspects of our life on earth and that’s something that Biutiful never quite does despite a valiant attempt.

Like 21 Grams, Biutiful introduces us to a man who is facing death and trying to deal with that as best as he can. Bardem plays this man, Uxbal, who is diagnosed with cancer and given mere months to live. Residing in what could best be called the slums of Barcelona, Uxbal makes his living as the middleman for moving counterfeit goods through the city. Those fake Prada bags you buy on street corners? Uxbal would have had a hand in those from helping to run the sweatshop full of immigrant Chinese workers who make them to getting the bags into the hands of African immigrants who sell them along with pirated DVDs and drugs. To say that Uxbal exploits these poor people, who live in squalor and in constant fear of deportation, is obvious; but to say that he doesn’t look out for them in his own special way wouldn’t be out of line either.

Uxbal also makes money by apparently being able to communicate with the dead. Mourning families pay him to come sit with the corpses of their deceased loved-ones to hear any final messages they may have before passing on to the afterlife and once Uxbal relays those messages he is paid and simply walks away. Strangely, the film deals with this aspect of Uxbal’s life very little to a point where I questioned its necessity. It further complicates his character to be sure, but we really aren’t given much insight into how this gift makes him consider his own death and afterlife unless of course I blinked and missed it.

Uxbal does these odd jobs in large part to care for his two children who live with him rather than his messy ex-wife, Marambra (Maricel Alvarez) who is bipolar, an alcoholic, and regularly sleeps with Uxbal’s brother and business partner, Tito (Eduard Fernandez). And although it is never verbalized completely, we know that Uxbal’s greatest concern upon his cancer diagnosis is that no one will be able to take care of his children when he is gone. Both his wife and brother are unreliable party animals and no one else in his circle seems financially sound enough to care for two growing children so he makes a major effort to save as much money for them as possible all the while trying to rebuild a relationship with Marambra in hopes that she’ll be able to pull it together and take the reins some day.

In addition to taking care of his family, Uxbal attempts to make right some of the wrongs he has contributed to with his career. At one point he purchases heaters for the Chinese immigrants who sleep together on the cold floor of the sweatshop basement (an act that has the film’s most shocking and emotional result) and he takes in a young Senegalese mother who is nearly pushed into homelessness when her husband is arrested in a police raid and deported. And although Uxbal’s heart is in the right place in these matters, his wisdom is often short-sighted yielding mixed results that only torture his already painful final months on this earth.

You’ve now no doubt realized that there is a lot going on in this film but there are still many aspects that I haven’t even touched upon and ultimately I think that is Biutiful‘s biggest problem. Iñárritu has gone to great pains to flesh out a film world that is so painfully realistic, layered, and full that it almost lacks focus. I’m certainly not advocating a filmmaker to spoon-feed us only information that is essential to the overall message or plot, but there is so much going on here that we’re often not sure which way to look or think. Minor subplots like the gay Chinese managers of the sweatshop have so little to add to the story of Uxbal that one can’t help but wonder what purpose they serve in a film that runs a lengthy two and a half hours.

Bardem is impressively and expectedly good in the film (as is the entire ensemble cast) and it is edited together nicely from start to finish but it just never quite gels into the solid, emotional piece that I think it could have been. It left me intrigued enough to consider revisiting it someday to glean some deeper meanings from the poetic visuals and myriad of characters, but on the whole I would only recommend this to avid Iñárritu or Bardem fans who need a fix of their work. At the very least you’ll be mentally interested, which is more than I can say for a vast majority of standard Hollywood drivel. I personally would love to see Iñárritu next tackle a film project that celebrates the joy of life instead of wallowing in the sadness of death but regardless of his choice, I’ll be in line to see it. He is a rare talent with (I believe) a lot to say and I’ll be more than happy to lend him my eyes and ears to take it in.

Grade: B