BIUTIFUL

Biutiful is essentially about death. And death certainly pervades the film, there’s no doubt about it. It is a dark, brooding, relentlessly depressing tale, shot with a gritty and pensive eye. The main character Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a petty criminal, a single father, and terminally ill. As we follow him through his twilight days, things seem to go from bad to worse for Uxbal, as his attempts to redeem himself repeatedly fail. I see what Biutiful is trying to do, but it sadly misses the mark. Plot elements surface and then fall by the wayside, and characters lack the depth to make their interminable woes sympathetic, despite the considerable running time. While obviously this film was never going to be a comedy, the insistent on the bleak and hopeless left me wanting more. As Don DeLillo once wrote, shouldn’t death be a swan dive? Biutiful could have been a lyrical and thoughtful exploration of mortality, but instead makes Jean Paul Satre seem like an afternoon with the Wiggles. For the clinically depressed and heavy-handed only. (KB) **