Bardem's character Uxbal makes money by finding jobs for illegal immigrants from Africa and China (mostly manufacturing and selling bootleg purses and DVDs in a sweatshop), but he also does some side work as a medium, talking to the recently deceased and passing along their messages to the living. He's got two young children for whom he's the sole caregiver because his wife is a bipolar massage therapist (possibly a euphemism) who's spent time in rehab. His brother seems to be a far more successful businessman, and he runs a nightmarish strip club-slash-nightclub in addition to helping his brother place his undocumented Chinese workers in construction jobs. Oh, and Uxbal is dying of cancer, which means we get to watch him piss blood every ten minutes.

Like Uxbal, and like Inarritu's other films, this movie has a lot going on, and none of it is pleasant. Uxbal's brother is sleeping with his wife, who may be better now, but may not. Also, they have to move the casket of their father, who fled the Franco regime when they were little, to make way for a mall. The sweatshop owner has a family and a gay lover/business associate who wants Uxbal cut out of the business. One of Uxbal's African employees faces deportation, and has a wife and child to care for. We spend time in these other characters' lives because they are interesting, and by "interesting" I mean "depressing." Uxbal is a good person, and he tries to be a good father as well as taking care of all of his workers and their families, but he is constantly hit with one setback after another, which makes it difficult to plan for his children's future.

So if the title had you expecting an uplifting movie, forget it -- the couple sitting next to me left when they got to the brother's strip club, where the music is loud and the dancers seemed to be digitally altered to be made entirely of breasts, for no reason I can determine. There's a little bit of scary ghost stuff, too, but it's nothing compared to the nightmare that is Uxbal's life.

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