Biutiful

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

The second of two films I saw tonight that I had the pleasure of only seeing a small clip from their oscar nomination during the ceremony and apart from that knew next to nothing about them. That helped this film greatly, I think you can tell from that trailer they don't give away too much of what it's about. It's nice to let the film and its surprises unfold and be surprised by them.

Alejandro Iñárritu only uses his usual non-linier storytelling device once in this film, as a little bookend. It makes a pleasant change. I don't think that story telling device would have really helped this film much anyway considering it's pretty much a one man character study unlike his other films with multiple narratives and main characters. Javier Bardem is front and centre here and he's good.

This one is very depressing. It's a world you don't want to spend too much time in, which is unfortunate because the film is almost 3 hours long and man it drags out. Bardem's character is trying to sort his life out before he dies from cancer, his wife is an unfit mother and his job getting illegal immigrants work and trying to stay out of trouble with the law doesn't pay enough to keep his 2 kids set up. Oh and there is a little bit about him talking to dead people too.

The film lays on tragedy after tragedy, and not in the hilarious way like A Serious Man. It's pretty bleak but just engaging enough to get you through most of it. There are a few cool turns here and there but ultimately it doesn't all tie up for me. I think it could have done with a but more script editing.