The disastrous movie Javier Bardem compared to a funeral procession: “But I was laughing”
It’s easy to be suckered in with the promise of big-name stars and proven performers leading the line in a hot-button movie, but Javier Bardem discovered that no amount of talent in the world is enough to salvage an unmitigated disaster.
On paper, there was no reason to doubt The Last Face couldn’t live up to the sum of its parts. After all, it was the latest directorial effort of two-time Academy Award winner Sean Penn, who’d rarely – if ever – put a foot wrong behind the camera whenever he swapped one side of the camera for another.
Crime drama The Indian Runner, the intensely atmospheric The Crossing Guard, psychological murder mystery thriller The Pledge, and biographical survival story Into the Wild had established Penn as a talented filmmaker, and having gone four-for-four so far, there was no indication he was about to drop the ball spectacularly.
Then there was the cast assembled, which teamed Bardem with fellow Oscar winner Charlize Theron alongside Palme d’Or-winning Blue Is the Warmest Colour star Adèle Exarchopoulos, character actor extraordinaire Jared Harris, and reliable veteran Jean Reno.
Touching on the humanitarian issues that have always been close to Penn’s heart, the story saw Bardem’s doctor risk life and limb in war-torn West Africa to provide aid and medical treatment to those suffering in the face of conflict, with Theron’s spokesperson quickly falling for the handsome physician that sees them struggle to reconcile some vast personal and professional differences.
The movie had all the potential in the world, only to be unanimously panned. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 was a statement of intent, but the first screening went so awry that The Last Face barely saw the inside of a cinema, with distributor Saban Films sending it largely to digital and on-demand.
It was an embarrassing comedown for a project with such promise, but at least Bardem knew that he was staring ignominy in the face. “We worked hard on making that movie; I haven’t done any movie where people didn’t work hard,” he told Deadline. “But it was a missed opportunity. I mean, it was a misfire of a movie, in my opinion.”
Bardem said, “The opening of that movie that day was like a funeral,” after The Last Face was greeted with nothing but silence, but he did get a kick out of it. “But I was laughing,” he added. “I was like, ‘Yes, this is what it is to make movies’. Sometimes you do No Country for Old Men, something you do this one, and it is not important whether it’s great or bad. You keep on doing what you need to do.”
Most actors would hide away after headlining the worst-reviewed movie of their professional life, but Bardem took it on the chin by offering a much more eloquent version of, ‘Hey, shit happens’. And make no mistake, The Last Face was shit.
