Friendship is important. Especially to the characters in this film. They may not be wealthy or have good job. But they have each other and that's all that matters to them. This is a story of the lives of a few friends in Spain and their struggle with unemployment.Everything about it felt realistic and down to Earth. The dialogue was full of funny banters and snappy answers. It's an optimistic yet at the same time a tragic story. The emotions are all balanced very well. The actors all do a fantastic jobs, especially Bardem (which goes without saying, it's to be expected). Although it's not just his show, everyone has a moment to shine.If you like realistic dramas were there's nothing too complicated going or if you're just a fan of Neorealism, then I would recommend this one for you.

It is not hard to say a movie is great when it has won 37 awards, and has another 18 nominations. The greatness of this movie is hardly disputed.But will you like it? Sadly, most will not because it is a depressing subject. You certainly don't go looking for entertainment in a movie about unemployment.That's too bad, because you will miss an outstanding performance by Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Before Night Falls, Mar adentro), and a great story that will certainly touch the lives of everyone who sees it.Santa (Bardem) and his pals Jose (Luis Tosar) and Lino (José Ángel Egido) congregate in a makeshift bar run by another friend, Rico (Joaquín Climent). Here they philosophize and console one another after they all have been laid off from a shipyard that closed.We follow them as their marriages become strained or fall apart. One commits suicide and another dies his hair and borrows his son's clothing in an attempt to compete with men half his age. Alcohol is consumed in copious amounts to dull the pain that, because of being unemployed, they are no longer men.This is not just a Spanish dilemma, it is also played out right here in America as companies move offshore. One could also consider this film highly appropriate as we are soon to decide if our country continues in this direction.Minor characters interact with the friends, but it is their closeness that is the central focus. Like Siamese twins, if one falls, they will all fall.

This is the story of a group of former workers in a Spanish ship-building company and it has a gritty, realistic feel which doesn't necessarily make it great. Yes, it has it's funny moments and yes, it does capture the ennui and the growing hopelessness and impotence that unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, brings to the jobless, as well as the strains and stresses that it puts on those around them but it's all a bit too bleak and imagines itself to have a deeper running emotional relationship with the audience than is actually there. Perhaps something is lost in the translation in the English subtitles but for me this film was, a bit like Withnail & I, more a set of scenes than a whole, coherent movie and it lacks the same appeal. In ways, it is as much a story about growing older as it is about unemployment. I did feel that the characters weren't very fleshed out. We have very little of their past to go on and very little to say why they are the way they are. Maybe it's because the film is trying to play on it's own 'Siamese twin' metaphor and that it is a multi-faceted character which is the sum of all the characters' parts that we are supposed to look at, that the pride, the doubt, the anger, the quiet desperation and the persistence of spirit are in every one of these people and that if one falls, they all fall. It's possible that's what the makers went for but it's weak and tenuous in it's implementation and the metaphor is more for reference to the failure of the union strikes which preceded the end of their days in the shipyard. I'm quite a fan of foreign language films and Javier Bardem's last movie 'The Sea Inside' was one of the best that I've seen recently. However, this offering really didn't do much for me. Like I always seem to comment these days, the acting in the movie was excellently played but due to their lack of depth, these were more types than characters. If 'The Full Monty' was a light-hearted look at hope, inspiration and the pursuit of happiness and folly against a backdrop of unemployment then this is quite the opposite. This is more a look at the prison and the inmates of unemployment and in this movie, there are no great escapes!

The Spanish film committee that chose this film over Pedro Almodovar's "Talk to her" to represent that country in the best foreign film at the Oscars, made a terrible a blunder. The rest is history: Hollywood preferred to honor the wronged man, and no one ever heard about this movie. It didn't get a commercial run in the United States, as far as I'm concerned, because it is a film that outside Spain has no great appeal.This film reminded me of a day at "Cheers", the Boston bar where the TV series took place, but without one iota of humor. The atmosphere is so bleak that it depresses the viewer as this heavy tale the director, together with his screen writer, decides to present us about unemployment in Northern Spain. There is such a gloom in this film as in no other film in recent memory. A lighter tone would have greatly improved this static film.The film, as directed by Fernando Leon, shows not a ray of hope for these idled workers who spend their days at the bar where they are able to get drinks on credit while they wait for better days. This bunch prefer to stay in a state of limbo rather than going away from the area where unemployment is rampant. They all complain how about the Koreans are making better and cheaper ships while having their drinks and seeing the world passing them by without even the least amount of worry about what tomorrow would bring. On top of that, the film feels false from beginning to end.Javier Bardem, with his rugged face, is the leader of this pack. His Santa is a man with a lot of pain and resentment, yet he prefers to bask in the sun rather than going to work and stop feeling sorry for himself. Luis Tosar is Jose who has his own demons to deal with. He is a coward who feels threatened by a wife who has her feet on the ground. Jose Angel Egido and Nieve de Medina are good in their roles.This movie is a painful reminder of what is wrong with the film industry in Spain, as well as other European countries that had seen better times. Everyone is ready to denounce Hollywood and the American film industry as the culprit for their decline. But just think about planning a Saturday night dinner and going to the movies for a relaxing time, if the selection was "Monday in the Sun", please prepare the Alka-Seltzer for the indigestion afterward!We hope director Leon lightens up for his next opus.