Rated R | CP Grade: B-
Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu is well rid of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, Babel), whose penchant for converging storylines has long passed the point of parody. But he’s still looking for a replacement, and judging from Biutiful, the team of Armando Bo and Nicolás Giacobone isn’t it. There’s not much to fault in the camera work, or in Javier Bardem’s sensitively bearish performance. But the film is saddled with such an undigested pile of bad ideas that nothing short of a miracle could have redeemed it. Bardem plays an impoverished father of two who deals drugs and works as a spirit medium to make ends meet — and who has terminal cancer — a MadLibs collision of miserabilist tropes that never congeals into a sensible story. The movie is so well assembled it almost fools you into thinking there’s something profound beneath its surface, but there’s no way to get under without going through. Sam Adams
Rating: | R |
Director: | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
Cast: | Javier Bardem, Félix Cubero, Blanca Portillo, Rubén Ochandiano, Martina García, Manolo Solo, Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernández, Piero Verzello, Ana Wagener |
Release Date: | January 28, 2011 (Limited) |
Running Time: | 147 |
Distributor: | Roadside Attractions |
Producer: | Fernando Bovaira, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik |
Genre: | Drama |
Advisory: | for disturbing images, language, some sexual content, nudity and drug use |
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