Director Fernando Léon de Aranoa with Javier Bardem

A black comedy that would have been something-and-nothing without the central presence of Bardem. He plays the smug, hypocritical, paternalistic boss of a manufacturer of scales (a metaphor that the film balances on) who has to contend with some potential PR disasters while the company is in the running for a prestigious award. His smarmy charm turns nasty as things escalate. There’s a kind of comeuppance; the fact that it’s engineered by a young woman is satisfying, but, as usual, it’s the Poor Bloody Infantry who suffer.