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 Mondays
in the Sun
Starring: Javier Bardem, Jose Angel Egido, and Luis Tosar
Directed by: Fernando León de Aranda
Mondays
in the Sun is a delightfully understated snapshot of life.
Director/writer Fernando León de Aranda has captured a
bit of the melancholy of displacement; the world unemployed people
sadly share. Mega talent Javier Bardem leads a group of extraordinary
actors as you're immersed in the slow paced tale - it's not unlike
sitting back and just soaking in the sun, taking in life, on say
a Monday afternoon …
Story
goes…a local factory has closed and a group of friends try
desperately to find meaning in their journey of life. They are
now left to search out any job they can - and they are no longer
young men. The continual decline of employment is leaching away
at their self-respect.
Your heart aches in the knowledge this tale is little too close
to reality as you watch the effects unemployment can have on a
person's psyche. Strong men that now sit at a bar idling away
their time talking about work or hunting down work as their worlds
change without their approval.
Santa
(Javier Bardem) is the strongest voiced of the lot. He is still
angered, after two years of unemployment, at his ex boss's treatment
of their citizens. He is an honest man filled with integrity and
not afraid to speak his mind - even when it would be in his best
interest to tone it down. He's at once a philosopher and a loser.
And his spirit is slowly becoming bitter with each beer he drinks.
His
friend Lino (Jose Angel Egido) is the oldest friend, and he's
showing it gray hair and all. Still he plods forth trying to find
a niche to sneak into. Each time a younger man gets the job his
soul a little more black and blue…. sniff.
Santa's closest friend, Jose (Luis Tosar), is feeling the effects
of worklessness as a debilitating worthlessness. His marriage
is crumbling and his lust for life all but distinguished into
an all too familiar scenario of "once was" cinders.'
The film's not depressing, as the above peak would have it seem.
You simply drop in; join them, as they try to scratch their way
out of oblivion. You can't help but draw conclusions as to each
man's fate, whether it's being permanently be stuck in the suet
in his personal gutter, or believing with another the dream of
finding another job is still there, and for another he his sanity
and future depend on his coming to grips with his past before
he finds what can be.
 Javier
Bardem, a long established Spanish actor (best known for Before
Night Falls and most recently The
Dancer Upstairs ), is a manlyberry studmuffin of the sweetest
caliber. On top of the delicious smoky brown eyes and rugged physique,
he's also quite an ACtor. Jav is able to disappear completely
into a role - even at the cost of his scrumptious uber manly beauty.
As Santa, he sports a beer gut and a beard that would make Jack
London cringe with dread at the food particles taking root from
the winter before...
Jose
Angel Egido's Lino will have your heart in your throat several
times throughout his tale. A soft-spoken man who life seems to
be hell bent on slapping upside the face. He's the everyman of
the unemployed.
Mondays in the Sun is so thoroughly realistic you expect
to look these fellows up in the local phone book. The acting is
impeccable the script tight and brutally honest - warts and all.
Bravo!
Snack
recommendation: Beer and more beer to blind the sad truth
of failure...
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