Biutiful

Biutiful is a 2010 psychological drama film directed, produced and co-written by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem. The project marks González Iñárritu's first film in his native Spanish language since his debut feature Amores perros (2000). Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro (who make up the "Three Amigos" with González Iñárritu in the film industry) serve as associate producers. The film follows Uxbal, a criminal and father who becomes diagnosed with prostate cancer and seeks to settle various things around his life before he dies. The title is in reference to the phonetic spelling in Spanish of the English word beautiful. Biutiful premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, and was released theatrically by Videocine in Mexico and United International Pictures in Spain on 22 October 2010 and 3 December, respectively. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and was a box-office bomb grossing $24.7 million worldwide on a budget of $35 million. It was nominated for two Academy Awards in 2011: Best Foreign Language and Best Actor for Bardem; his nomination was the first entirely Spanish-language performance to be nominated for the award. Bardem also received the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his work on the film. Plot Uxbal lives in a shabby apartment in Barcelona with his two young children, Ana and Mateo. He is separated from their mother Marambra, an alcoholic prostitute with bipolar disorder. Having grown up an orphan, Uxbal has no family other than his brother Tito, who works in the construction business (and sometimes solicits Marambra's services). Uxbal earns a living by procuring work for a group of Chinese illegal immigrants who make forged designer goods which a group of African street vendors then sell. He also works as a medium to the dead, passing on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. When he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, leaving him with only a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart. Uxbal initially begins chemotherapy, but he later ends the treatment at the advice of his friend Bea, an alternative healer. She gives him two black stones which she asks him to give his children before he dies. The group of Africans are brutally arrested by the police, despite Uxbal's regular payment of bribes, because they also deal in drugs. When one of them is deported back to Senegal, Uxbal offers his wife Ige and baby son a room in his apartment.