The plot centers on several men whose lives have been disrupted by layoffs at the shipyard where they used to work. Saddled with endless free time that's become a heavy psychological burden, they while away the hours at a bar owned by Rico, who bought the place with money he got as a settlement when he lost his job. The unofficial leader of the pack is Santa Santamaria, a former welder whose nickname is too lighthearted for his scrappy, often angry personality. His friend Lino is anxious to find a new job, but after countless rejections at the unemployment office he concludes that no one will hire him because of his middle-aged looks. Reina has become a security guard at a soccer stadium, which turns out not to be much fun. José has a steadily employed wife, but her stand-up job in a fish-packing plant is destroying her legs and causing household tension. Amador downs far too much booze while pining for his wife to return from her extended visit to a relative. Rounding out this not-so-merry crew is Sergei, a Russian full of hard-to-believe stories about training as a cosmonaut before the Soviet Union went out of business. Also in the picture is Rico's teenage daughter, Nata, who flirts harmlessly with Santa and serves as a mostly silent witness to the jokes, quarrels, and sob stories that echo through the bar with hardly any changes from one day to the next.
Mondays in the Sun builds a remarkable sense of human drama around these commonplace guys, even though so little happens to them that their story is scarcely a story at all. Lino dyes his hair so he'll look a little younger, then sweats so much with worry that the coloring runs down his neck. José and Ana, his long-suffering spouse, apply for a loan but instantly strike out when José erupts with rage at a system he thinks is automatically stacked against him. Reina sneaks his friends into the bleachers to watch a game at the stadium, but the view is so bad that they can't tell who scored. Amador drinks and drinks, Sergei talks and talks, and Santa seethes with discontent while earning pocket change as a babysitter, bantering with a woman he meets at a supermarket, and struggling with a big decision: Should he pay a court-ordered fine for destroying a streetlight during a union protest, or stand on his principles and go to jail instead? His marvelously off-kilter solution to this dilemma is one of the picture's high points, as is a scene where Santa reads the story of "The Grasshopper and the Ant" to a little boy he's babysitting, grows increasingly agitated about the treatment of the underemployed grasshopper, and unloads a sociopolitical tirade on the poor kid, who has no idea what's going on.
With its minimalist plot, down-to-earth characters, and sensitive eye for detail, Mondays in the Sun resembles films of the Italian neorealist movement that flourished in the post-World War II years Vittorio De Sica's moving Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief, for instance, which also depict men cast adrift in an uncaring city. But while those movies use nonprofessional actors in the leading roles, Mondays in the Sun has an experienced cast, headed by Javier Bardem, whose moody portrayal of the temperamental Santa is the picture's rock-solid center of gravity. Luis Tosar and Celso Bugallo are equally strong as the gloomy José and the alcoholic Amador, and young Aida Folch is exactly right as Nata, the adolescent barmaid. There isn't a weak performance in the picture, right down to Laura Domínguez as the supermarket "cheese girl" whose low-key flirting provides one of the few bright spots in the largely empty life that Santa now finds himself living.
The secret to making an engrossing film out of an understated story is to generate human drama without slipping into melodrama, and Aranoa rarely loses his footing. (His use of Lucio Godoy's music seems a bit cloying to me, but in the DVD commentary he praises it for giving the sweet-and-sad atmosphere he wanted.) Smart and perceptive in almost every scene, the picture fully deserves the five awards and three nominations it earned in the Goya Awards competition (Spain's equivalent of the Oscars) for the best achievements of 2002. The winners were Aranoa as best director; Bardem as best actor; Tosar as best supporting actor; José Ángel Egido, who plays Lino, as best new actor; and best picture for the movie itself.
Mondays in the Sun looks and sounds terrific on the DVD from Lionsgate's Meridian Collection, which also features a reasonably good making-of documentary, an informative commentary track with Aranoa and Bardem, scenes deleted to improve the story's flow, and an excellent split-screen extra that matches storyboard sketches with footage from the finished picture. In all, the package is worthy of the film, and vice versa. Not even a Monday in the sun would be more satisfying.
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by David Sterritt
