Mort d'un cycliste

This movie started well enough. With the death of a cyclist.

Man gets out of the car, horrified. Woman gets out and tells him they should get going, forget the cyclist. Cyclist dies. Couple feels guilty.

So far, so good. I thought I was seeing a first-class psychological thriller.

Then we meet the piano-playing weasel, Rafa. Who seems to know what happened and is holding it over the couple.

If the movie had continued on that path, we might have had a noir worth talking about.

Sadly, Commie Bardem must have used the rushes from the first part of the film to convince dictator Franco's henchmen to greenlight the film. Because it soon descends into a polemic about class. A very, very steep descent.

I mean, does anybody really care about Matilde the math student?

It's ends up being a lot of yackety-yacking and whispering in discreet corners of rooms. Stuck in the mud of its own thin premise.

I am good with the ending. It's how Bardem got there that's the problem.