Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010)

Uxbal’s (Javier Bardem) life is tough. He is practically on his own raising two kids since their mom is having a bipolar disorder. He is dealing with a large group of illegal immigrants (both Chinese and African),he is giving them jobs and is bribing the local cop to keep them out of trouble. On top of this he is making a living as a psychic who is hired to listen to the dead and report to their family. As his life wasn’t hard enough already Uxbal is diagnosed with cancer. With still a couple of months to live he is trying to keep his head above water hiding the fatal disease for his children.

As you can guess from this short synopsis, Iñárritu’s  movie is not a light entertaining film but as we are used from him a heavy and depressive drama that is definitely not recommended as a date movie. Where the director was using the so-called network narrative in his previous films (21 Grams, Babel) he chose to try a different approach having his protagonist in almost every scene of the film. Unfortunately this doesn’t work very well, and it is mainly because of the strong performance of Bardem that this movie is not failing in all its aspects.

There are two main problems that I have with this film. First of all, it is nothing but drama and misery not really seeming to lead anywhere. To me these choices seem somewhat easy and might stem from a lack of creativity. What could be the message of a director showing us no sense of humour, hope or putting it in any kind of perspective. Sure the drama makes the movie compelling enough and because of a decent directing and cinematography it grabs your attention but all the elements combined are simply too dramatic. Secondly, the strong point of Babel and especially 21 Grams, my favourite from the director, is that they have a strong plot. The storyline build out of different parts in the narrative are coming together in a logical and satisfying closure point. In Biutiful we seem to be going nowhere but downhill without any kind of surprise or twist. Of course with the structure chosen here this is not to be expected. Perhaps one should consider this one more as a study of a struggling caring father.

Yes, of course the director wants to confront us with a cruel reality and let us question the way society is dealing with illegal immigrants for instance but in my opinion the focus and the way this is told is unbalanced. There are so many different elements in this film that it is hard to filter for a clear message for either one of them. Think about broken families, psychic abilities and moral questions regarding immigrants or maybe even capitalism and homosexuality, so a lot! Therefore I experienced this movie as a kind of messy and distractive in all its different themes but nevertheless it did make an impression. But, I have to say, that some scenes are so confronting and uncomfortable that you need a heart of stone not to feel anything.

Biutiful isn’t by far as good as the previous films of Iñárritu, mainly caused by its less interesting and unsurprising plot. On the other hand the central performance of Bardem is impressive and if you like the trademark depressive themes of the filmmaker it may come recommended. I don’t think I will ever watch it again and am waiting for some more creativity and hope.

5.5/10