Unwatchable without Javier Bardem’s affecting, devastatingly committed performance, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful – his first film minus regular writing partner Guillermo Arriaga – plunges the viewer into a shapeless, sprawling character study that functions as nothing less than a punishing reminder of how rotten the universe can be. Yet even with a powerhouse like Bardem holding fort, this misery-laden feel-bad saga struggles to transcend its unsubtly despairing view of humanity, and might have you gasping for air long before its funereally paced 148 minutes are up. While Iñárritu’s newfound narrative linearity - ambitiously threading a disease-of-the-week story with subplots involving cheap Chinese labour and African street hawkers - is welcome, the film is overall, as turgid and clumsy as the splintered structures of Babel and 21 Grams. It clobbers you over the head with such merciless destitution that its rare moments of light – such as a tiny touching scene where Uxbal’s kids are escorted home by the wife of a Senegalese dealer – feel both emotionally stirring and unfortunately short-changed.