Uxbal is not a man to lie back and ruminate at leisure, for the simple reason that he has no leisure.

NEWYORKER: Miles To Go

Look at him, a tower of failing strength, as Uxbal embraces Ana near the end, and listen to his heartbeat next to hers.

NEWYORKER: Miles To Go

Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a fixer on the streets of Barcelona, finding work on the sly for immigrants and keeping the deal sweet with payoffs to the police.

NEWYORKER: Biutiful

The scene in which Uxbal finds Mateo alone, abandoned by his mother, with a bruised face, is deeply upsetting, and all the harder to erase because Bardem plays it so calmly, reining in the urge to erupt.

NEWYORKER: Miles To Go

Here is yet another role that steers him toward indignity (Uxbal has terminal cancer), but Bardem never milks it, preferring to attend to troubles outside the dying man and to count those blessings that he will leave behind.

NEWYORKER: Biutiful

Home is no less fraught: Uxbal is an adoring, manners-correcting father to Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and Mateo (Guillermo Estrella), but his estranged wife, Marambra (Maricel Alvarez), is a ruin, jagged with drink, who cannot be trusted with the kids.

NEWYORKER: Miles To Go