In "Common Wealth," Julia(Carmen Maura), a temporary real estate agent, is showing a couple a furnished apartment in downtown Madrid where her and her underemployed husband, Ricardo(Jesus Bonilla), have been spending the occasional night to escape their unheated apartment, when water starts leaking in from the
apartment above. After the fire department breaks in, a very, very dead body is found in hideous squalor. While going through his papers, Julia finds a map that leads her to a treasure of 300 million pesetas. "Common Wealth" is an entertaining movie with a nasty outlook of human nature(which was reinforced by the rubbernecking on the bus this morning) that owes a lot to "Delicatessen" for its basic setup, if not plot. So, while it is basically predictable, the movie does manage to pull off a couple of surprises in its exciting payoff. That, along with the always delightful Carmen Maura leading the way, does manage to make it quite worthwhile.
March 7, 2008
