OVP: The Sea Inside (2004)

Film: The Sea Inside (2004)
Stars: Javier Bardem, Belen Rueda, Lola Duenas, Celso Bugallo, Mabel Rivera
Director: Alejandro Amenabar
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Foreign Language Film-Spain*, Makeup)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

It's a new week on the blog, and if you've been following along at all this summer, that means a new theme!  This week, since Americans shouldn't (and in most cases, can't) travel abroad, we're going to do that cinematically by taking a peak at five films that were nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and we're going to start out with a movie that actually won this trophy, Spain's The Sea Inside.  The film takes place kind of in a weird point in Javier Bardem's career.  At this point Bardem had been nominated for an Oscar (for Before Night Falls), and was famous enough that there was a lot of talk about him getting nominated for this performance in 2004, but wasn't quite at the place he is now, post his Oscar win & stint as a James Bond villain.  Therefore this is still on his climb up the ladder in the real-life story of Ramon Sampedro, a quadriplegic who wanted the right to die.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film features Ramon (Bardem), a writer who during a freak accident in his youth paralyzed himself from the neck down, thus making it virtually impossible for him to move in the way he had once done.  He is interviewed by Julia (Rueda), a woman suffering from Cadasil syndrome (which seems to have a situation that typically arises in your 40's and 50's where you continually have a series of strokes, and there isn't a cure), who has sympathy for his lifelong cause-to legally be able to kill himself, something he is unable to do on his own because of his situation.  His family loves him, and has a complicated attitude toward his fight (understanding his pain, but not wanting him to die despite his curmudgeonly attitude toward them).  Eventually he meets a woman named Rosa (Duenas) who falls in love with him, enough so that she's willing to help him die.

The film is intriguing, mostly because this is a political issue that rather than being resolved in one side's favor, kind of just disappeared (at least in American domestic politics-I'm aware this is more of a conversation in Europe, particularly in The Sea Inside's country of Spain).  Euthanasia was once a more hot-button issue (certainly I remember it being so in 2004), but unlike social issues such as stem-cell research or gay marriage, it didn't pick one side, and unlike abortion, it isn't something we still really discuss in the States.  If there's any side that euthanasia lands on, it's against Ramon's belief-most countries (including the United States) don't allow for euthanasia in this situation, since Ramon has brain function and his disability is physical, rather than mental or terminally medical (he is not going to die from this, even if it causes him pain).  Thus, the movie feels like a strange curiosity as unlike issue films, even international ones, this doesn't really get resolved in the direction of what the main characters are trying to achieve in the real world.

The actual film, though, is a snore.  This movie is repetitive-its story is compelling, but it doesn't know what to do with it, and Bardem doesn't bring enough life to his main character.  I feel like a lot of the kudos were more for the physical endurance that he had to achieve for playing this character, but there's not enough spirit in what he's bringing to the screen-there's not enough doubt as he encounters people who might want to change his point-of-view like Julia and Rosa.  I left the movie feeling like it was overlong and kind of schlocky, a missed opportunity that got bogged down in a political conversation that doesn't feel timely.