The close-up is one of cinema’s simplest and greatest achievements. It separates theatre, with its emphasis on bold gesture and voice projection, from film, where an actor’s subtlety carries more weight. A masterful performance on the big screen, like the one which Javier Bardem delivers in Biutiful, is a ballet of micro-expressions.

Bardem plays Uxbal, a man who services Barcelona’s illegal immigrant community. He has contacts in the police department and takes cuts from corrupt deals. His estranged wife is a recovering alcoholic with a toxic temper, and is possibly bipolar. She has mothered two children, but has not learnt to be their mother. Early on, Uxbal discovers he has cancer - the kind that has spread too quickly for chemotherapy to catch up with. This film is about his attempts to set things right, whatever that may mean.

For the most part, the plot lacks tension, even interest. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto skilfully capture the details of domesticity, but overuse shaky, hand-held camerawork. The editing is, at times, reminiscent of the Bourne trilogy. For a drama about the last days in the life of a sinner, that’s not a compliment.

The music is by Gustavo Santaolalla who, for my money, is the best in the biz when it comes to this kind of material. He can evoke a rainbow of deep-seeded melancholy using two or three notes on a muffed electric guitar. The only component missing from Iñárritu’s usual team of collaborators is screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, and the dialogue suffers as a result when compared to their previous work (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel).

But let me get back to Bardem, who’s the best thing about Biutiful. His Uxbal embodies masculinity and gentleness, strength and decay. He supplies moments of such profound intimacy, we forget that we don’t care about what happens, or that the film’s set-up has left us indifferent to its outcome: we simply stare at his face, mesmerised, the way we couldn’t in real life without getting self-conscious. A great close-up has that power, but it doesn’t necessarily make a great film.