Biutiful

It's not as if we expected a frothy comedy from director Iñárritu, but Biutiful raises the bar for just how grim things can get in a film. Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a petty crook in the Barcelona underworld, trying to reconcile his exploitation of the desperate illegal immigrants who work for him with his natural decency. He is also raising two young children in a squalid, roach infested flat whilst trying to maintain a relationship with their deeply unstable, alcoholic mother. Then he discovers that he has inoperable cancer and only a short time to live. And then something really bad happens...

There are moments of great cinematic beauty created in no small part by Rodrigo Prieto's photography which manages to somehow be both gritty and vibrantly colourful. As usual, Bardem has us reaching for the word “towering” to describe his performance. And yet these are not enough to stop wishing for some small crack of light in all that suffering. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]