Acclaimed auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu hits all the right notes in his long awaited directorial follow-up to 2006’s Academy Award-winning Babel. Biutiful is also González Iñárritu’s first film to be made in his native Spanish since his landmark feature debut, Amores perros. Adding further pedigree to this heavy-hitting drama is an all-star cast led by Academy Award®-winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), who recently won the best actor award for this role at the Cannes Film Festival. Together, they make a powerful match, as evidenced from the opening moments of this transfixing work. Forgoing González Iñárritu’s usual proclivity for enormous casts and non-linear narratives and timelines, Biutiful features a significantly more stripped-down approach to storytelling. Bardem delivers a typically devastating performance as Uxbal, a son, father and lover living in Barcelona. Working as a shady businessman, he helps Chinese immigrants find illegal jobs. His previous line of work as a drug dealer still haunts him and leaves him guilt-ridden. To further complicate matters, his bipolar wife works as a prostitute. But things are about to get even worse, as Uxbal discovers that he may not live much longer. And when he is confronted by a childhood friend who now works as a police officer, his world takes an even darker and more dangerous turn. Fraught with technical ambition, Biutiful is further elevated by the work of renowned cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (who has photographed all of González Iñárritu’s films) and Academy Award -winning editor Stephen Mirrione (Traffic). The film’s craft, like its narrative, feels both effortless and brutally meticulous. The result is a tour de force that takes us on a unique and compelling journey down the rocky road of human existence.