Amador

Part black comedy, part bittersweet relationship drama, writer-director Fernando León de Aranoa's Amador tells the story of an immigrant, Marcela (Magaly Solier), who is trapped in a nowhere marriage in Spain. Stuck with a philandering husband who sells stolen flowers from an apartment they can't afford, Marcela takes a temporary job as caretaker of a dying man, Amador (Celso Bugallo), whose daughter has left with her family on a month-long vacation. Marcela and Amador develop a sweet, understated bond: she appreciates his poetic wisdom, he sees her under-the-radar intelligence (Amador is also the first person to notice that Marcela is pregnant, a secret she keeps from her spouse). A story twist arrives when Amador dies, jeopardizing Marcela's much-needed employment. Her solution is to carry on as if nothing has changed, covering the obvious signs of a rotting corpse with deodorizers while counting the minutes until the month is up. Not as ghoulish as the plot might suggest, Amador is a very original tale about life springing from loss, or as Amador says about the juxtaposition of his imminent death and eventual arrival of Marcela's baby, it's about making space for another person. Recommended. (T. Keogh)