It’s been a huge amount of time since we last had a review of anything on here, except for the last review-ish of the year of course. With a picture of a giant chocolate poo, you can be rest assured it was not going to be anything inspiring.

So it’s actually rather odd, that for getting back into the swing of things, we open up 2014’s further narration into the woes of the world, with some drivel about a Spanish language film, which frankly will leave you feeling like a chronically depressed lemming standing right next to a cliff.

Now I know what you are thinking;

Where the hell did this come from? We’ve recently been seeing the White House explode, Marvel films take over everything and Frankenstein making a comeback in the same vein that vampire thingy with Kate Bake-sale. Which also had Bill Nighy in it come to think of it. Does he have an obligation to be the evil bad guy in cheap supernatural films?

To give a little bit of history, Biutiful was released a few years ago, and remarkably got shiny shiny nominated for various things. I had began to write the review on the website after watching it one evening in Central London but then got distracted with some keys dangling above my head. Given I’d come back to do a bit more writing, I decided to finish what I started.

Also we can only watch the Avengers a few more times before our eyes bleed while we wait for Guardians of the Galaxy, so here we go. PLOT PLEASE!

The main protagonist is Uxbal (Javier Bardem), who lives in a cr*pped out apartment (or cosy up market apartment if going by London real estate standards these days) in Barcelona with two children, and living in bliss away from their mother, who basically can best be described as off her t*ts, through either boozing or being bipolar. He also has a brother Tito hanging around the place too, and frankly, he is an a**hole at best.

Uxballs earns a living by procuring work for illegal immigrants and managing a group of Chinese women producing forged designer goods along with the African street vendors who are selling them. Which somehow is still a more respectable job than being a banker in the city.

He is able to talk to the dead and is sometimes paid to pass on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. How, I have no idea, it just happens. During the course of this, you’re not seeing anything which gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, so imagine how you’re going to feel when Uxballs is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer leaving him with only a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart.

Among the awful events which take place during this epic cry fest, is one which is most disturbing. The Chinese workers die while asleep in the basement of their sweatshop due to malfunctioning gas heaters installed by Uxballs-up. The piste de resistance to this tragic outcome comes in the form of the bodies, once thrown into the sea to get rid of the evidence, fails when they are washed up on the shore shortly after, therefore ruining the day’s planned donkey rides.

We go from one bad tragedy to another, from Uxballs failing health, to the mother’s on and off state of what-ever-the-bloody-hell-she’s-on-at-the-time, all the while, you clearly will be wondering what is going to happen to the children once Uxballs departs this mortal coil.

It is a tale where we see what happens, when you spend your entire life in a dysfunctional and self-centered state, when the chips are down, you may not be able to do anything about it. You become the ultimate embodiment of being powerless, and trust becomes a swear word. It’s something which at times can be so intense, you wonder if the supermarkets can start selling you anti depressants by the bucketful.

The acting is nothing short of unbelievable and that is only meant in a truly emotive way here, as everyone plays a meaningful part to move the story forward. It is not hard to see here why so many thought that Bardem and the creators deserved recognition.

It is incredibly hard going to watch the content presented, more so than an episode of Britain’s got Brain Damage, and therefore it’s somewhat hard to recommend to watch, but only because it does what it sets out to do, far too well in fact. In Spanish too, which perhaps has meant that they were not being held back perhaps as what you would be within the US and UK creative arenas. It deals with some diabolical issues of the day, pulling absolutely no punches at all, human trafficking and the morality in performing such acts.

But you do in some ways end up rooting for Uxballs-up as he tries to make amends during his final days, and the one true thing on his mind is protecting his kids until the bitter end. Considering what he has done, that alone, does finally push it into the watch category. Just be sure to have the Samaritans on emergency speed dial afterwards.

Given it’s been a couple of years since release, you can find out a lot more at the movie’s website here: http://www.biutiful-themovie.com/ and then give money to the evil empire that is Amazon for it too if you are interested in crying heavily for a few pounds.