Javier Bardem is to die for in 'Biutiful'

 Like the title of "Biutiful," everything in the life of Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is just a little bit skewed. He loves his children (Hanaa Bouchaib, Guillermo Estrella), but their mother (Maricel Alvarez) is a bipolar alcoholic. He's a multifaceted businessman, but his businesses involve the exploitation of illegal African and Chinese aliens smuggled into Barcelona.

He is in contact with the spirits of the dead - in perhaps the movie's best single scene, Uxbal speaks with one of three young brothers killed in some unnamed accident, and is then excoriated by their mother when he tries to pass on a message. He is a good man, but his karma is really, really bad. And, by the way, he's dying of cancer.

In Alejandro González Iñárritu's first feature since "Babel" (2006), the Mexican director and his lead actor team for a story about a man whose burden in life can't seem to get any more spirit-crushing. And yet it does, and the fact that the film is so watchable is due to Bardem, and the deservedly Oscar-nominated performance he gives in service of a character of somewhat questionable purpose. ("Biutiful" also is nominated for Best Foreign Language film.)

Although the characters are well defined and their relationships thoroughly believable, Uxbal himself is a narrative cipher. What's the viewer supposed to take away from him? That the human capacity for pain is unfathomable?

The script doesn't explore the spiritual aspect of Uxbal's clairvoyance nearly as much as it might have, and given his cosmic crimes, it seems a lapse. Still, "Biutiful" has some devastating moments.