Craig and Bardem in Skyfall.

The big question the pessimists are asking about Skyfall, the 23rd entry in the James Bond franchise: Does 007 still have a license to keep an audience alert? The answer: And how! Some of the exhilaration faded when Sean Connery lost his hair and took a powder, but 50 years after Ian Fleming’s super-cool agent from Her Majesty’s Secret Service was shot from a cannon into movie history, Bond is back, and so is high-octane entertainment.

Skyfall may not reach the sophisticated heights of Casino Royale, but it’s better than the lollygagging Quantum of Solace.With buff, camera-ready Daniel Craig lending fresh fisticuffs to the role, and acclaimed director Sam Mendes adding more realism and fewer jokes than in most Bond pictures, it’s a satisfying entertainment that delivers a kangaroo kick from start to finish. Despite the less showy Saul Bass-inspired titles and a stupid theme song behind the credits screeched by Adele (“We will stand tall and face it all/You may have my number but you’ll never have my heart”) that reminds us all how much we owe to Shirley Bassey, Skyfall signifies a new 007 style. The series is beyond gimmickry now. You just look at the toys, try to follow the plot and count the bikinis. But the best thing about Skyfall is the way it maximizes the great Judi Dench as M. It’s her best outing in the series to date, and she chews it like taffy. With six you get eggroll, but with vibrant, chromatic cinematography by Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption), anda distinguished assembly of supersonic talents headed by Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Albert Finney—you get box office platinum.

The film opens with the obligatory chase—007 wrecking an entire bazaar in Istanbul, scaling rooftops on a motorcycle and destroying as many civilians, buildings and moving vehicles as possible, cars that never run out of gasoline, on roads that never end, posing no threat to maintenance. Bond is knocked off the top of a speeding train into roaring rapids and plunges over a waterfall. When the dust settles, a plot emerges; M loses her computer hard-drive, and on it, a file containing the name of every NATO agent in the world’s terrorist zones. Hackers then unleash cyber attacks on secret service headquarters in London. Bond is believed dead, M is threatened with dismissal and the series seems in danger of grinding to a halt. When Bond resurfaces, M snarls through clenched teeth, “You know the rules of the game. You’ve been playing it long enough.” Which means no loyalty, no apologies and anything goes. While he was enjoying some badly needed R and R and taking a shower with sexy Bérénice Marlohe, the bombed-out secret service relocated its headquarters to an underground bunker used by Churchill during the Blitz. Bond’s unlikely new quartermaster is a wimpy fop named Q (Ben Whishaw) who dispatches him to Shanghai to locate and liquidate the thief who is using M’s files to destroy the world. The mega-villain is an epicene bottle-blond fiend played with exotic pansexual delight by Javier Bardem. A renegade agent who used to work for M, he’s droll, cynical and seductive. In the film’s funniest scene, he straps Bond to a chair, runs his hands lasciviously across his crotch and hisses “There’s a first time for everything.” Good ol’ 007, unfazed, counters with “How do you know it’s the first time?”

The movie moves from a casino in Macao, approachable only by boat and surrounded by giant man-eating Komodo dragons, to an endangered London tube station at rush hour, to a hunting lodge in Scotland where M gets a chance to show off some of her own operative training. Mr. Bardem munches a lot of whatever scenery is still standing and Dame Judi employs her icy blue eyes and matching steel reserve with terrifying authority. Bond is floppier and less buttoned-down than usual; he’s given up smoking, and the psychology of his traumatic background is explored for the first time. Bond relies less on naked girls and state-of-the-art gadgets than before, but as played by Daniel Craig, he’s both a teddy bear and as rugged as ever. So much so, in fact, that when his trusty old Aston Martin makes an appearance at last, the audience bursts into applause. Like the pieces of an elaborate jigsaw, everything falls perfectly into place, and there is overwhelming evidence that James Bond will rise again. Is there life after Skyfall? Stay tuned.

rreed@observer.com

Skyfall

Running Time 143 minutes

Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan

Directed by Sam Mendes

Starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Naomie Harris

3/4

Bardem has played the villain before, in No Country for Old Men, but that was a bit edgier than the stodgy Bond franchise. Between the potential Bond villainy, his rumored place (per IMDb) in the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower, and his role in Eat Pray Love, Bardem is carving out a niche for himself as the actor in big-budget movies that aren't offensively stupid (one's mileage on Eat Pray Love may vary). A Bond film directed by Sam Mendes is about as prestigious a paycheck role as one can get -- which can't be said of the role he passed up in Wall Street, which would have had him racing motorcycles with Shia LaBeouf. (He also turned down the lead in Nine -- wise man.) Perhaps Bardem can sneak some scripts for tentpole movies that don't seem awful to his wife, Penélope Cruz, last seen in Sex and the City 2. There's a difference between cashing in and selling out, you two -- we don't want to end up resenting the Spanish invasion!

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Then Lyons backtracked for a second. "And that's not a bad thing-it's about rediscovering yourself."

The celluloid version of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir may be all about rediscovery, but last night was about promotion-as if any more were needed. The book, after all, has been selling at an astounding clip since its release, and the posters greet you at every street corner.

Maybe that's why the stars were slow to come. At first, Julia was nowhere in sight, Javier would be a while, and James Franco wouldn't even bother showing up.

The evening's real guest of honor, however, may have been Elizabeth Gilbert, the writer who fashioned herself as the central figure of her astoundingly popular book. Not only did she conceive of the project, but she also had the honor of walking into a theater where lucky ticket holders would spend two hours watching the wish-fulfillment of her tri-pronged globetrotting fantasy-all of which is now re-enacted by Julia Roberts. We can only hope a sequel will depict her being fêted by Oprah, seeing her paperback clutched by disillusioned women the world over, and attending the premiere of a summer blockbuster that features herself as the protagonist-in New York, the city that drove her abroad in the first place.

Eventually there were screams and shuffling at the front of the red carpet, so everyone followed suit and slipped their Blackberrys back into their pockets and paid attention again. James Brolin emerged with a shaggy goatee, and gave featured Eat Pray Love actor Mike O'Malley a fierce bro hug.

"We did a project together, The People Speak-he's a real inspiration to me," O'Malley, who just scored an Emmy nomination for his guest spot on Glee, told me, as if a simple hug between two ruggedly attractive men needed any explanation. "He said the same things about me, I'm sure."
Javier Bardem-who plays love interest Felipe in the film-strolled by, doing his best to avoid any sort of human contact, and soon after came Julia Roberts, her eyes locked firmly toward the ground as she walked, flanked by a squad of guards.

The third in line was Gilbert herself, and the real Liz attracted nearly as much attention as the actress playing her. She was beaming-it was hard to imagine this woman desperately in need of sustenance, scripture, and/or sex. She left the onlookers with little more than a smirk and made her way into the theater.

Luckily, guest Russell Simmons was not in as much of a hurry. He stood unfazed amid an onslaught of cameras and recorders and rattled off his new favorite rap albums. So, he was asked, have you ever had an Eat Pray Love experience of your own?

"I don't know," he said as he walked up to the end of the red carpet, his white Yankees cap turning away. "I haven't seen the movie yet!"

The Oscar-winning actor -- best known for either playing a psychopath or heartthrob, depending on the person you ask -- will reportedly make an appearance on Glee next season. And while this could just be another rumor floating around the series -- OMG, Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele are totally dating -- since there are actually corresponding quotes from Bardem, it simply feels too insane to make up. Said Bardem to EW: "We’re going to rock the house [...] We’re going to do some heavy metal — Spanish heavy metal, which is the worst." OK then!

Bardem's plot will dovetail with the wheelchair bound Artie (played by the non-wheelchair bound Kevin McHale) and will probably feature at least one ridiculous medallion and some leather pants. The story goes that the actor became a "Gleek" (a.k.a. a fan of the Fox series) after watching the first season in a single week and sought out his Eat Pray Love director -- and Glee creator -- Ryan Murphy to beg for a role. Our theory? Columbia Pictures -- and Murphy -- realized that the Julia Roberts-led Eat Pray Love was skewwing older in its tracking and needed to get under-25 girls to the theater. And what better way to do that here in 2010 than to be associated with Glee. Hey, it was either that or vampires...

The early reviews have been split down the middle, with the fanboys drooling (spoiler alert: Harry Knowles loved it!) and the real critics meeting the film with a shrug or worse. Says The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt in his pan: “Bottom line: Ouch."

That hurt! Still, love or hate, everyone seems to agree that “visionary” director Zack Snyder has succeeded in painstakingly recreating Alan Moore’s graphic novel. (Just prepare to be disappointed if you’re looking for the giant squid.) But from where we sit, the one thing he missed is the casting!

Oh sure, Little Children co-stars Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley, playing Nite Owl II and Rorschach respectively, are ideal. Mr. Haley is adept at doing creepy and pathetic; Mr. Wilson, the very definition of “hot, but impotent." And while in some quarters the feeling is that Robert Downey Jr. should have been The Comedian, we think Jeffrey Dean Morgan will be just fine. Simply, Mr. Downey Jr. is way too nice to play a role like that. Mr. Morgan, on the other hand, has always seemed like a bit of a jerk (playing a ghost on Grey’s Anatomy who got to have sex with Katherine Heigl might have something to do with that). It’s the rest of this motley crew that leaves a lot to be desired! So join us as we recast Watchmen.

Demi Moore as Silk Spectre I: Watching the two female leads in Watchmen was a difficult task. Between the nudity and the general misogyny directed towards all women in the graphic novel, we doubt a lot of A-list actresses were banging down Mr. Snyder’s door to appear. That being said, is it written, Slumdog Millionaire-style, that Sin City co-star Carla Gugino has to appear in every adaptation of an acclaimed graphic novel? Give us the older and just plain better Demi Moore instead.

Cameron Diaz and Maggie Grace as Silk Spectre II: If you’re going to cast Cameron Diaz look-alike Malin Akerman in this role, why not just go for the real thing? As for those pesky flashback scenes, we’d slide in former Lost castaway Maggie Grace. If she can play a teenager in Taken, we’re sure she can do it in Watchmen. Too bad we can’t find any room for Boone.

Javier Bardem as Dr. Manhattan: Billy Crudup possesses a lot of useful character traits, but being laconic isn’t one of them. And unfortunately for him, Dr. Manhattan is a soulless and dead-eyed bore—words like “tachyon” are just not said in anything other than a Ben Stein-like monotone. So how about we go with Javier Bardem? Dr. Manhattan might be an All-American, but Mr. Bardem’s rumbling baritone, used so effectively in No Country for Old Men, would suit the big blue guy just perfectly. And this time, he wouldn’t need that ridiculous haircut.

Ralph Fiennes as Ozymandias: We really like Matthew Goode—so effete in Match Point, so dastardly in The Lookout—but he’s way too young for this role. And, no offense, we have a hard time thinking of him as the smartest man in the world. Ozymandias is the type of guy who would affect a British accent just for the hell of it; a man who seems bored with his own intelligence. Mr. Fiennes, come on down! An actor of his caliber could liven up the pages and pages of exposition that Ozymandias is forced to deliver in the final third of the story. We’re already trembling at the thought of Mr. Goode pontificating about the greater good while wearing a gold lamé headband that’s straight out of Barbarella.

Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, from his own screenplay, is close to his 40th feature film in an almost 40-year career that began in earnest in 1969 with Take the Money and Run, and has proceeded through the years with more ups and downs, more ins and outs, more breakthroughs and breakups, and more hits and flops than that of any other director I can think of, from any period in film history. Now in his 70s, he has managed to astound me by coming up with one of the most felicitously written, edited, acted and directed romantic comedies of his entire career. I may still give an edge to 1979’s Manhattan and 1977’s Annie Hall, but not by too much.

Dare I say it? Woody has definitely mellowed and deepened in his feelings for other people. One can still hear Woody’s ironic cadences in his narration, delivered here by Christopher Evan Welch, but the ironies are gentler and more generous than in years past. The film’s delights are encapsulated in its cumbersome title. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) open the film as two young women silently dragging their luggage behind them as they disembark in Barcelona. We see them in the bright sunlight, but they say nothing before the narrator tells us all we have to know about their lives, their American nationality, their contrasting backgrounds and their immediate destination, to the home of Vicky’s distant relatives, Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and Mark (Kevin Dunn), who have offered Vicky and Cristina an opportunity to spend a summer in Barcelona.

Mr. Allen’s economical method of exposition allows him to skip all the small talk and plunge directly into the comically erotic adventures Vicky and Cristina experience with a boldly womanizing Spanish painter, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), and, much later, with his firebrand ex-wife, María Elena (Penélope Cruz), who has previously stabbed Juan Antonio in a fit of jealousy.

Juan Antonio manages to seduce Vicky and Cristina separately, but he never achieves his initial goal of making it a threesome, at least not with Vicky and Cristina. One complication is Vicky’s impending marriage to a presentable young American businessman, Doug (Chris Messina), who during his quick trip to Barcelona persuades Vicky to marry him there, before their fancy scheduled wedding.

As it turns out, it is Cristina who enters into a ménage-a-trois with Juan Antonio, but with María Elena, after Juan Antonio brings her home, penniless, following a failed suicide attempt.

There are other askew elective affinities as well, including one that is uncovered when Vicky catches her hostess, Judy, kissing her husband’s business partner, and thereby realizes that her own “sensible” marriage may be doomed to inevitable disillusion. There are no easy answers for either Vicky or Cristina even in voluptuous Barcelona; the city serves extensively as the film’s fourth muse, making for delectable summer entertainment in time-honored travelogue fashion. But there is much more as well in the seriocomic intensity with which Woody contemplates his three contrasting goddesses of desire, and their assorted womanly impasses and vulnerabilities. I hope this film will confound his army of naysayers by becoming a huge commercial success. It is already an artistic triumph of heroic dimensions, considering that it has come much closer to the end of a career than its beginning. The magnificent acting ensemble alone is worth the price of admission.

asarris@observer.com

Woody Allen's new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona premiered Wednesday night at the Hotel Plaza Athenee on East 64th St.; stars Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall didn't show up. [WWD]

At the screening, Vicky Cristina Barcelona star Javier Bardem gloated over his sex scenes with Ms. Johansson, Ms. Hall and real-life girlfriend Penelope Cruz. [P6]

Mariah Carey is paying $125,000 to rent the Stone Meadow Farm in East Hampton for one week to celebrate her recent marriage to Nick Cannon. [P6]

Someone has been RSVPing for events under Gossip Girl stars Blake Lively and Penn Badgley's names, and now people are wondering who's playing a joke on Serena and Dan. [Rush & Molloy]

According to Variety, The Weinstein Company is negotiating with Penelope Cruz, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sophia Loren, Javier Bardem and newcomer Marion Cotillard (who recently played Edith Piaf in the highly-praised biopic, La Vie En Rose) to appear in the adaptation.

Bardem follows Raul Julia in the role--Julia played director Guido Contini, who, in the musical inspired by Fellini's 8 1/2, must juggle his many lovers and his career; Antonio Banderas played the role in the revival.

Loren would play Contini's mother, who appears in the musical as a ghost.

Michael Tolkin is writing the screenplay; Rob Marshall will choreograph; and Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston, who did the original book and music and lyrics respectively, are executive producers.

• Variety

Let me begin by saying that no movie in my memory has depressed me more than Million Dollar Baby. I saw it twice, first at an early screening and later on DVD, and though I was not as depressed the second time, it still left me feeling pretty grim.

Adapted from a screenplay by Paul Haggis, Million Dollar Baby is based on a collection of stories entitled Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner, by veteran boxing cut-man F.X. Toole. Mr. Eastwood, a remarkably energetic 74, plays grizzled fight trainer Frankie Dunn. Along with his buddy and onetime fighter Eddie (Scrap) Dupris, played by Morgan Freeman, Frankie runs an old-timers' gym in downtown Los Angeles, which also doubles as the place that Scrap sleeps. The two buddies' petty-squabbling camaraderie resembles that of an old married couple, much like their magically bonded gunfighters in Mr. Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992).

The picture begins with Frankie managing a promising young heavyweight, Big Willie Little (Mike Colter), but after several impressive victories, Big Willie walks out on Frankie because the manager is reluctant to set up a title fight. One of the many demons in Frankie's guilt-ridden past is Scrap's partial blindness, incurred when Frankie managed him in a title fight that ended Scrap's boxing career. Another demon: the many letters returned unopened from Frankie's estranged daughter, to whom he nonetheless keeps writing regularly. Frankie virtually besieges Father Horvak (Brian O'Byrne), his parish priest, for advice on suitably atoning for his past sins, with studying to read W.B. Yeats in the original Gaelic being one of his atonement rituals.

In line with the lower-class sociology of boxing, the fighters in the gym are either black or Latino-at least until Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) shows up. She begins working inexpertly on a punching bag, with the avowed intention of becoming a boxing champion under Frankie's tutelage. Leaving her trailer-park-trash family to work for pennies and leftovers as a waitress in a cheap restaurant, Maggie's determined to make good in the ring. Frankie tries to discourage her by pointing out that, at 33, she's much too old to begin training as a fighter. But with Scrap's help, Maggie perseveres to the point where she starts winning club fights. Of course, a surrogate father-daughter relationship springs up between Frankie and Maggie-he even devises the shrewd promotional gimmick of presenting her as a proud Irish fighter to secure an ethnic fan base.

And then the downfall. The first sour note is struck when Maggie spends some of her earnings to buy her mother and siblings a new house. Margo Martindale, as Maggie's mother, should win some sort of award for all-time movie mother from hell; despite her daughter's generosity, she sneeringly taunts Maggie that everyone laughs at her for the way she earns a living.

Still, there's some consolation in Maggie's triumphant world tour, with people cheering for her everywhere she goes. When she returns to America, Maggie's in prime form for a championship bout against an opponent who fights so dirty that she makes Mike Tyson look like a choirboy. The fight gets underway, and Maggie seems to be winning-until, in an unguarded moment after the bell's rung, her opponent slugs her with a sucker punch so ferocious that it sends Maggie reeling across the ring, her head crashing into the stool that Frankie pulls up after the bell.

Maggie is now a basket case, sucking oxygen from a tube in a hospital bed. She pleads with Frankie to help end her life. Adding to the horror, Monster Mom shows up along with her entire greedy brood and a contract-wielding lawyer to sign all of Maggie's earnings over to her "family." "You lost, darlin', you lost," says the mom, reducing her daughter to total humiliation. When Maggie is unable to sign the contract-her hands are paralyzed-her mother obligingly places the pen in her mouth, after which Maggie comes into her own by spitting out the pen, cursing the entire family and sending them scurrying out of the hospital like rats from a sinking ship.

What I found most perplexing about the tragic turn of events was how a championship fight that ended in a quasi-criminal act fails to illicit any repercussions or protests, by Frankie or anyone else. I know John F. Kennedy said that life was unfair long before he was assassinated, and I know film critics have been conditioned to condemn happy endings, but does that warrant such excessive malignancy?

What's amused and frustrated me somewhat is how critics have scrupulously avoided going into detail on the sudden pile-up of misfortunes that supposedly makes Mr. Eastwood's film so moving. Of course, they don't want to spoil the fun for the audience, who are left wincing over the sudden onset of terminal pain and sorrow.

But I would suggest that to describe the final outcome as "tragedy," as some critics have done, is a gross misstatement. Tragedies don't depress me, because they are carefully constructed to avoid the vagaries of blind accident and random evil.

In the end, Frankie accedes to Maggie's pleas and facilitates her suicide-after which, according to Scrap's narration, Frankie disappears from view, never to be seen again. The thorny issue of mercy killing becomes something of an anticlimax next to the oppressive conjunction of an evil fighter and a monster mother-I would argue that nothing in the narrative prepares us for such a disastrous dénouement, though some critics claim to have discerned an ominous darkening of the texture of the film as it seemed to be rollicking along on its Rocky-like inspirational way. I beg to differ as I rest my case against Million Dollar Baby. This is not to say that I wish to demean the work of Mr. Eastwood, Mr. Freeman and Ms. Swank: They are all excellent in what is, in my perhaps ultra-Aristotelian view, a losing cause.

Sweet Release

Alejandro Amenábar's The Sea Inside (in Spanish, with English subtitles), based on Ramón Sampedro's book Letters from Hell, also tells the story of a handicapped protagonist wishing to terminate his life in order to die with dignity. But whereas Million Dollar Baby left me despondent, The Sea Inside left me exhilarated. So my problem is not with the complex feelings involved in the desire of the afflicted to die with dignity, but in how the story of the death-seeker is told. Where Million Dollar Baby sinks into the pit of bottomless despair, The Sea Inside soars to the fantastically romantic heights of love between a man and a woman. And when I say "soar," I mean it literally to describe one of the greatest love scenes in the history of the cinema.

Javier Bardem plays Ramón Sampedro, a 55-year-old quadriplegic who was left paralyzed after a diving accident 30 years earlier. In his bedridden state, he spends years petitioning the secular authorities in Spain to give him the right to terminate his life with dignity.

The love scene to which I referred occurs after he falls in love with Belén Rueda's Julia, a lawyer who has come to help him file his judicial plea. Julia is partially handicapped herself, using a cane to move about because of a degenerative disease. She is married, and Ramón is bed-ridden, but they nevertheless attain an unprecedented degree of spiritual rapport.

Then, one day, to the stirring melody of Giacomo Puccini's aria "I shall conquer" from Turandot, Ramón rises magically from his bed, pulls it away from the window so as to get a running start, and flies through the window to the seashore, where he meets Julia for a passionate embrace. There is more than a little directorial audacity in this dream-like incursion into the realms that Blaise Pascal best summed up in the aphorism "The heart has its reasons." This audacity would seem to come naturally to a director whose earlier oeuvre was drenched in otherworldliness, in films like Thesis (1996), Open Your Eyes (1997) and The Others (2001).

There are two other women in Ramón's physically but not emotionally curtailed existence: Lola Dueñas' Rosa, a volcanically mixed-up and messed-up mother of two, who sees in Ramón a man to whom she can pour out her heart without having it trampled in the mud, and Mabel Rivera's Manuela, Ramón's sister-in-law, who is devoted more to Ramón's needs than to the needs of her own family. The only question (and it is eventually answered) is which of these women loves him enough to satisfy his heart's desire, and thus be parted from him forever.

Throughout his seemingly endless ordeal, Mr. Bardem's Ramón, like his real-life counterpart, remains a cheerfully smiling presence to the people who flock to his bedside to be cheered up from their own various malaises. This joyous stoicism of Ramón is rendered brilliantly by Mr. Bardem, currently one of the world's great actors.

Maid in L.A.

James L. Brooks' Spanglish, from his own screenplay, could be charged with reverse bigotry for the lopsided contrast it makes between a Mexican nanny named Flor (Paz Vega) and her wealthy Los Angeles employer, Deborah Clasky (Téa Leoni). Indeed, Mr. Brooks directs Ms. Leoni, an actress who is no stranger to subtlety, in the same, shrill single note for almost the entire film. The critics, and I presume the public, are virtually forced to hate her character-though, when you think about it, she never does anything really malicious, except possibly buying clothes a few sizes too small for her chubby daughter, Bernice (Sarah Steele). By contrast, Flor, the good cop, kindly sews an outfit for Bernice that fits perfectly.

Adam Sandler plays Deborah's hapless husband, John Clasky, a world-class celebrity chef. In a reversal of type, Mr. Sandler plays a Casper Milquetoast character, responding invariably with gentleness and sensitivity to Deborah's most outrageous outbursts. Also adding to the chaos in the household is Deborah's cheerfully heavy-drinking mother, Evelyn (Cloris Leachman). The story is actually narrated by Flor's precocious daughter, Christina (Shelbie Bruce), in a flash-forward to her application to Princeton despite her illegal-immigrant background.

But just when I was about to write off Mr. Brooks' film as that of a wealthy, self-hating do-gooder with a weakness for Latino babes, he suddenly began switching his point of view to reveal that the source of Deborah's angst had much to do with her failed career and her unhappy childhood with a drunkenly promiscuous mother.

In one of the funniest scenes ever of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking people trying to communicate-a scene which shows how resourceful a child actress Ms. Bruce is-Christina not only translates for her mother, but also improvises gestures and movements to dramatize the emotional content of her mother's words. This howl of a scene is alone worth the price of admission. I also liked the scene in which Deborah makes Flor look a bit foolish trying to outrun her on the way home, with the overachieving Deborah, for once, not even realizing that she's being challenged.

Still, it's no accident that "Span-" precedes "-glish" in this piece of special pleading for the immigrant population. The film gets better as it goes along, however, and all the characters, including Deborah, become more interesting and appealing as we get to know them better. Come to think of it, Mr. Brooks has always had a tendency to become shrill, even in his best movies like Terms of Endearment (1983) and Broadcast News (1987). Spanglish is far from his best, but it is good enough for these generally witless times.

An Italian Classic

Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) adapted Guiseppe di Lampedusa's penetrating historical novel of Sicily in 1860 into The Leopard, one of the greatest motion pictures of all time, as well as one of the most politically profound. The Film Forum is showing the entire uncut Italian version-195 minutes, including the 45-minute concluding ballroom scene, which encapsulates all the themes of the film in lavish style as the life of a man slowly fades away. With Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale, Serge Regianni and Paolo Stoppa (Jan. 12 to 20).

The period is deliberately set in November 1932, just before Hitler took power and made it impossible to treat the British aristocracy as the smug P.G. Wodehouse simpletons they were without also implicating them in the Holocaust. Gosford Park is the magnificent country estate to which nouveau-riche Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his wife, Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas), have invited a slew of friends and relatives for a shooting party. These include Lady Sylvia's Aunt Constance, Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith); the hosts' unmarried daughter, Isobel McCordle (Camilla Rutherford); and Lady Sylvia's sister Louisa (Geraldine Somerville) and her husband, Raymond, Lord Stockbridge (Charles Dance), who cannot forgive Sir William for having risen to the peerage through his vulgar moneymaking prowess in commerce.

Then there's Lieutenant Commander Anthony Meredith (Tom Hollander), desperately in debt, and his wife, Lady Sylvia's other sister, Lady Lavinia Meredith (Natasha Wightman), who stands by Anthony despite his difficulties; the Honorable Freddie Nesbitt, who has lost his job, and his wife, Mabel Nesbitt (Claudia Blakley), who Freddie mistakenly assumed was wealthy; Lord Rupert Standish (Laurence Fox), the penniless younger son of a marquess who is courting Isobel; and Jeremy Blond, a friend of Lord Rupert, whatever that means.

A touch of star power is provided by Jeremy Northam, who portrays Ivor Novello, the real-life British matinee idol, film star and musical performer and, just incidentally, Sir William's cousin. A faint hint of anti-Semitism is provided with the arrival of Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), a friend of Ivor Novello and a producer of Charlie Chan movies.

If, by this time, you have problems keeping the guests all straight in your mind, Mr. Altman does very little to enlighten you about all the intrigues upstairs. You do get the feeling that England, like the rest of the world, was in a slump in 1932. Money and the lack of it is the main topic of conversation, but most of the "swells" seem indistinct and interchangeable.

Not so downstairs, where the bulk of the star power is concentrated in a roster of servants acted by Alan Bates, Helen Mirren, Eileen Atkins, Derek Jacobi, Emily Watson, Richard E. Grant, Kelly MacDonald, Clive Owen and a score more performers less familiar to American audiences. The way the film was shot, there is always a servant or two present in every "upstairs" scene. There were no extras in the film, so background hubbub had to be supplied by the actors themselves. The point of view is thus much more downstairs than upstairs. Mr. Altman's irreverence toward the former class has become an issue with which Americans seem to be having more trouble than the British themselves.

The murder at Gosford Park and the bizarre solution to its mystery are not worth giving away in these circumstances. The true evil involved long predates the arrival of the first guest at Gosford Park, and Mr. Altman skillfully withholds the final tears of catharsis until all the guests are in the driveway on the way home, and the police are left clueless. Stephen Fry as the detective investigating the murder seems to be attempting a Jacques Tati imitation without much success or plausibility. This is the only serious failing I can find in the film. For the rest, Mr. Altman seems to be having a good time running his spectacular cast through its paces, and you will, too.

From beginning to end, Mr. Altman's Gosford Park is a textbook exercise in directorial dexterity. And for once, all the "inside" jokes about Charlie Chan movies and the blighted film career of the real Ivor Novello flow smoothly into the scenario, thanks to the expert timing under pressure of a marvelous ensemble.

A Study in Marriage

Ray Lawrence's Lantana , based on the screenplay adapted by Andrew Bovell from his play Speaking in Tongues , starts out as a moody film noir and ends as a passionate meditation on the deep mysteries of marriage. The lantana bush, on its surface, is a beautiful plant filled with exotic flowers, but underneath is a thick, thorny growth. The plant serves as a metaphor for the twists and turns in four marriages beset by the demons of desire and deceit.

Police detective Leon Zat (Anthony LaPaglia) becomes entangled in a missing-persons investigation in the midst of cheating on his wife, a betrayal that fills him with self-revulsion. Leon's wife, Sonja (Kerry Armstrong), feels that something is amiss with her marriage, but can't bear to think that her husband is deceiving her. Without his knowledge, she consults a psychiatrist named Valerie (Barbara Hershey), who has begun to suspect that her own husband, John (Geoffrey Rush), is having an affair with a gay patient, Patrick (Peter Phelps). When Valerie disappears after having left a desperate message on her husband's answering machine, the net of suspicion spreads wide enough to involve two neighboring couples, Jane (Rachel Blake) and her estranged husband Pete (Glenn Robbins), and-somewhat lower on the social ladder-Paula (Daniela Farinacci) and Nik (Vince Colosimo). To complicate matters for Leon in his investigation, Jane just happens to be the woman with whom he's been betraying his wife.

With such a complicated criss-crossing of relationships, the film tends to move slowly from blackout to blackout until the deeper feelings of the characters register. This is to say that Lantana finally delivers its emotional payoff with the resolution of four marriages with varying degrees of reconciliation and regret. Mr. LaPaglia, Ms. Armstrong, Mr. Rush and Ms. Hershey invest their roles with a profound humanity.

A Study in Marriage II

Two film adaptations of real-life marriages under agonizing stress-and two of the best films of the year-are Richard Eyre's Iris , from a screenplay by Mr. Eyre and Charles Wood, adapted from John Bayley's two memoirs, and Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind , sparked by Russell Crowe's extraordinary evocation of schizophrenia, which to my mind is by far the best performance of the year. I just hope that Mr. Crowe is not going to be penalized by the various award-givers simply because of his Bruce Willis–like bad-boy publicity.

As for Iris , it manages to overcome my long-held prejudice against two sets of actors playing characters at different stages of their lives. (I am still recovering from the substitution of Valerie Hobson-nice as she is, and even brilliant in Robert Hamer's 1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets -for the Vivien Leigh–like feline beauty of young Jean Simmons midway through David Lean's Great Expectations of 1946.) Kate Winslet as the younger Iris Murdoch and Judi Dench as the older version manage to bring the literary lioness to vibrant life: Ms. Winslet by the fruitful union of her voluptuous body with her hard-edged, impudently intellectual countenance, Ms. Dench by her magisterial mental authority slowly crumpling into the horrible confusion of Alzheimer's.

Incarnating the Job-like patience and forbearance toward the eternally impossible Iris Murdoch are Hugh Bonneville as the early John Bailey and Jim Broadbent the later one. In both periods, the Bailey-Murdoch marriage is sustained by the mystical bonds that, as W.H. Auden observed, make married couples so much more mysteriously interesting than unmarried ones.

Javier Bardem Return In a Love Triangle

Gerardo Vera's Second Skin presents a married couple in which the husband becomes infatuated with a gay surgeon. The husband is played by Jordi Mollà, the wife by Ariadna Gil, and the "other woman" by Javier Bardem, the Oscar-nominated star of Before Night Falls . The problem with this particular case of adultery-aside from the obvious one arising from bisexuality-is that the husband lies to his wife, lies to his male lover and lies to himself, until he's besieged from all directions.

One doesn't know how one is supposed to react to this once-taboo subject when the lovemaking is tilted in intensity and duration to the gay relationship rather than the straight one. I have always suspected, without the slightest bit of authority or research, that the distinction between gay and straight is one of compulsive hypersexuality on one side and repressive romanticism on the other. Of course, there are sex-crazy people in all behavioral groupings; what's interesting in Second Skin is that the committed homosexual played by Mr. Bardem is more comfortable with women than the married bisexual played by Mr. Molla. And with the film's striking ending, one realizes that we have a long way to go before we fully understand all the sexual permutations involved.