All that leaves is a wonderfully strong, cavernous performance that should be rightly heralded for what it is, sitting off to the side to Inarritu's smug indulgences. The quiet dignity of Bardem should be enough to sustain a mood, the quiet mundane, and often moving daily trials of a sick man caring and loving his two small children. But we must also be bogged down by Uxbal's bipolar wife, and obnoxious nut whose baggage, seemingly only added to up the tragic ante, slowly becomes grating and too far outside the real world. Then there's the business exchanges of Uxbal. Including a duplicitous Asian man (and his secret gay love), a sweat shop team of sad, exploited Asians, and a black drug dealing illegal immigrant who must have a faithful and lovely wife and a small and lovely child. The miseries pile up and up, and when the further familial crises of Uxbal's childhood are revealed, I had to call uncle! Slow, pretentious, depressing art house cinema is usually something I fully support, however this smug, miserable tragedy vexes and irritates to the point of causing nothing but anger and empathy. D
