"Biutiful"

Fabulous actor, Javier Bardem, playing a truly complicated (and conflicted?) human being who is a mixture of compassionate criminal, loving, protective father of two young children, married to a disgusting drunkard slut of a wife, with whom he doesn't live -- until circumstances lead him to share housing with her (you find later she is bi-polar), and BTW, he is dying of prostate Cancer. So he's trying to get all his financial affairs in order (put aside enough money to at least pay their rent for a year.) Oh, and also, BTW, he is gifted with the inner vision/communing with the dead and dying. He finds jobs for illegal Chinese immigrants in a factory (whose owner is a crook, who pays him a kick-back, so he doesn't have to hire union workers). Similarly there are the Chinese construction workers, who don't know beans about construction. There's also Uxbal's (Bardem's role) brother who mangages (owns?) what seemed to me to be quite definitely an X-rated hot spot replete with pole dancers, etc. I was not prepared for this! The music was quite effective and emotionally compelling, but horribly LOUD. Another thread of the story is that Uxbal has decided to have his father, who has just died, cremated, which will save money - not having to keep a niche reserved previously for the body. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) there were subtitles throughout this film, which takes place in Barcelona. Bardem is an amazing actor. If it were not for his mesmerizing presence, I probably would have walked out, but watching him kept me glued to my seat. His performance is, of course FOUR STAR, and all the rest of the cast are fine (the children are great), but the story is so miserable, and the most of the characters so despicable that I simply don't know how to rate it -- all things considered. So, maybe TWO STARS?