movies
BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
Beautiful Javier Bardem
and Biutiful director
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Life Sucks,
And Then You Die
Biutiful’s path too dusty and cluttered
BIUTIFUL: Directed by Alejandro González
Iñárritu. Written by Alejandro González
Iñárritu, Armando Bo and Nicolás Giacobone.
Cinematography, Rodrigo Prieto. Editor,
Stephen Mirrione. Music, Gustavo Santaolalla.
Starring Javier Bardem. Focus Features, 2010.
R. 148 minutes.
T
rying to explain what happens in
Biutiful is kind of like trying to
explain the plot of an action fi lm
in which everything happens at once: You
know, when the bad guy’s plan comes to
fruition; the girl nearly drowns; the car
breaks down; something explodes; planets
collide; idiotic pilots fail to get out of the
way of universe-destroying red matter —
but wait, there’s more!
For Uxbal (Javier Bardem), however,
the crises are slightly more realistic. He’s
ill; his wife is a manic, selfi sh creature who
comes in and out of his and their children’s
lives; his brother is some sort of layabout
and some sort of business partner; Uxbal’s
job, as an outside-the-law facilitator who
fi nds work for immigrants, is stressful and
taxing at the best of times. And then there’s
the strange small matter of dealing with the
corpse of a father Uxbal never knew.
Also, Uxbal can talk to dead people.
Sort of. This sounds more dramatic than
it is, in the fi lm, and one of director and
co-writer Alejandro González Iñárritu’s
better choices is to play down this strange
talent, to wrap it in as a reminder of the
impossibility of tying up life’s loose ends.
González Iñárritu has made a career
of sprawling stories that weave together
seemingly disparate lives. His debut
feature, Amores Perros, was arguably the
most effective (and affecting) of the bunch,
though I’m fond of Babel (and not just for
Rinko Kikuchi’s striking performance as
a mute, aching teenager). Biutiful has one
central character, which might make it
seem more centered, but a cast of lightly
sketched outlines rotates around Uxbal,
spreading Biutiful’s story and emotional
weight too thin.
Bardem’s
grounded,
delicate
performance
nearly
balances
the
overstuffed rest of the fi lm, but I still
found myself thinking, unexpectedly, of
Bilbo Baggins, tired and worn, explaining
that he felt “sort of stretched, like butter
scraped over too much bread.” Such is
González Iñárritu’s story, which spreads
itself thin trying to tie Uxbal’s story to the
stresses and failures of the global economy.
Senegalese immigrants sell wares on the
street; the cops claim they’re selling dope
as well. Chinese immigrants sew purses for
too little money and are locked in at night,
sleeping on the sweatshop fl oor. Corrupt
cops only turn a blind eye for so long.
González Iñárritu’s focus skips and
stammers; he pauses for a bit on the
sweatshop workers’ overseers, whose
relationship never fully gels; he turns to
Uxbal’s family, where his children are sweet
and his wife is a caricature: overwrought,
unstable, selfi sh, untrustworthy. She’s no
more a full character than is the warm,
gentle Ige (Diaryatou Daff), who Uxbal
helps when her husband is deported.
If you can focus fully on Uxbal, and
on the struggle embodied in Bardem’s
posture, his lank hair and his drawn smile,
you’ll fi nd a smaller fi lm lost in Biutiful’s
maze of threads. It’s hard to see, hidden
behind nebulous reminders that the world
is messed up and unfair and good people
do bad things sometimes. The morality of
the fi lm is neither simple nor complex; it’s
undeveloped, like all the characters who
are not Uxbal.
Biutiful’s dedication is to González
Iñárritu’s father, which makes sense, in a
frustrating way: This crowded, distant mess
plays out like a sentimental life lesson: Be
better, be kind, mean well, forgive yourself
for your worst failures and your children
will love you despite them. González
Iñárritu’s
frequent
cinematographer,
Rodrigo Prieto, pries into the corners of
damp apartments and dank alleys, fi lthy
sweatshops and crowded funeral parlors,
fi lling the screen with grit and longing
and uncertainty, but we’ve seen all that
before from this fi lmmaker, and to smarter
ends. Rather than eliciting an emotional
or thoughtful response, Biutiful calls up a
feeling of obligation, as if we should feel
moved, or shocked, or heartbroken about
it. Maybe we should just watch Amores
Perros again instead.
ew
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