The Spanish film Mondays In The Sun has a message to convey: Economic hardship and unemployment make life difficult. It conveys that message over and over again through simple illustration, following three unemployed shipyard workers through the dull routine of their disenfranchised lives. José Ángel Egido shows up for one job interview after another, trying to hide his age and lack of experience. Luis Tosar watches his marriage crumble as he sinks deeper into the bottle. To quell his anger and pass the time, Javier Bardem plays the lothario, or at least as much of a lothario as his grubby rented room will allow. For a good opening stretch, director and co-writer Fernando León De Aranda finds success in his rigorous commitment to portraying nothing but lives edging into darkness. One sequence has the three men enthusiastically cheering a soccer match, until the camera pans up to reveal the obstructed view from their perch atop a building overlooking the stadium. Half a game, their logic seems to go, is better than none, and besides, they've grown used to compromises. Unfortunately, the repetition eventually forces the film across the fine line dividing empathy and pity. The sentimentality weakens its argument, as do the many monologues spelling out its characters' woes. An unsuccessful job hunt scored to loud, insistent music might work once, but by the third or fourth time, it just grows tedious. Fortunately, no one seems to have clued Bardem in on the game plan, and the fierceness and complexity he brings to his role nearly saves Mondays In The Sun. Flirting with a woman handing out samples of Swiss cheese at a grocery store, he conveys a combination of lust and actual hunger, grabbing one sample after another while never losing her gaze, as if attempting to tell a story deeper and more interesting than the one at hand.