Mildly maudlin group portrait of laid-off shipbuilders on the north coast of Spain, and their cheerless, unsmiling, grim camaraderie. The minor daily mortifications -- watching a soccer match from a free perch without a view of the goal, applying for a bank loan from a smug yuppie, splitting duties with a fifteen-year-old babysitter for a cut of the profits and a shot at the liquor cabinet, massaging a runny hairdye into a head of gray for a job interview -- have a cumulative if monotonous force. (The hardest punch: the shocking glimpse inside a comrade's apartment after helping the souse home to bed.) Javier Bardem, sporting a beard of far greater density than the close-cropped hair atop his head, is more concerned to show his restraint than to show his range. And he shows so much of it as to expand his range in the bargain. Written and directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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