You're Beautiful

If you're not familiar with this song, it begins:

My life is brilliant.

And mine is, especially in comparison with the people depicted in the film my friend and I took in this afternoon: Biutiful. Probably the best word I can think of to describe this film is gritty. Scene after scene revealed the horrors endured by those who live life at the margins: poor working conditions, threat of deportation, prison, drug addiction, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, carbon monoxide poisoning, child abuse, prostrate cancer, prostitution... And the list goes on.

It probably would have been too much to take if it hadn't been packaged so beautifully - when my friend asked if I wanted to see Javier Bardem in Biutiful this weekend I answered that I wanted to see Javier in anything, anytime. Mmmmmm:

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.

You're beautiful, it's true.

I saw your face in a crowded place,

And I don't know what to do,

'Cause I'll never be with you.

Yep, Javier is one of a handful of people (I was going to say dudes but Kate Winslet is also on my list) who have the power to temporarily make me feel exactly like James Blunt does in this song about the chick he meets on the subway, but like James and his random encounter, there isn't a future for me with Javier:

But it's time to face the truth,

I will never be with you.

One of the saddest parts of the movie is when his 10 year old daughter has to face that she will no longer get to be with her Dad -- I sat there sobbing when he died lying next to her in bed. My friend didn't shed any tears -- partly because he's a dude, maybe, and as he theorized, maybe because I have children whom I cannot imagine having to leave on this Earth while they are still little birds who need looking after.

The movie definitely hit me on that level -- my daughter's sound spelling (the title comes from his daughter's sound spelling of beautiful) totally touches my heart. On the list she worked on this weekend of potential independent project topics she put:

What would it be like to be: an edeter

Person I could interview: my Dad.

Reading that this morning before I said goodbye to her and sent her to her Dad's, and then seeing this movie this afternoon, I'm sooooooo grateful that even if we're not living in the same house, my kids get to grow up with both of their parents fully present in these formative years.

Beautiful.