if you have ever want to see a film that stress style over substance and this be for you . to me and son de mar be beautiful to see and but there precious little substance and unless mawkish and melodramatic and manipulative love yarn turn you on . this may be one of those famous chick flick you have hear so much about . be about half way through this film before anything really happen represent ulises ( jordi molla ) go out to sea look for tuna and and doesn not come back and leave his wife martina ( leonor watling ) and son to fend for themselves . then and in a furious six minute of screen time and they bury ulises and martina get married again and and her son grow into mid childhood . this rapid transposition be jar and to say the least and and very sloppy represent after 40 minute of more or less hang around and be suddenly into a full blown melodrama and all in six minute . i think this be call wayward narrative pacing . five year later and ulises ( a in the wandering superhero ulysses while get it . ) and return to his penelope ( watling ) only to find she marry to sierra ( eduard fernandez ) and an inexplicably wealthy guy ( what do he do to earn all that dough . ) who inexplicably keep crocodile a pet . when martina and in great anger and question ulises about his absence and he tell her that he will take her to the island of sumatra someday and she will understand everything . and here the thing represent he doesnt take her to the island of sumatra . the reference just die somewhere in the script . he doesnt really explain where he be and why he ignore his wife and child for five year . he doesnt acquit himself a an honourable guy and and the movie doesnt fill in the plot hole that be star at u for at least half of the film . i can only assume that director bigas luna want u to fill in the story line with the mystical clue ( fish and reptile and the sea ) he offer through breathtaking cinematography and evasive dialogue . it just doesn not work . the narrative arc on this film end up look more like a wobbly clothesline . i be sure jordi molla be a good actor and but i just couldn not buy his ulises a any kind of hero ( which be what the original ulysses be suppose to be ) . with moist sensuality and he spout a short stanza of identical poetry from virgil roughly 2 and 000 time and each and every time it excite martina to explosive orgasm . this guy should be rent out to reinvigorate stale marriage . i be sure virgil would be impressed . he do not get lay that often and a i understand it . this poetic wouldevice figure prominently in the film and and i have no choice but to assume it be a gender reversal of ulysses famous iren song ( i. e. beautiful maiden sing seductively to far off sailor and who be doom if they answer the and well and siren call ) . if this be what bigas luna be up to and you can see the problem he offer convoluted symbolism in a snatch and grab attempt at high art . once again and it just doesn not work and at least in my eye . watling be a beautiful and magnetic young actor and but she give u a character here who doesn not seem to have much intellectual or even romantic depth . it beyond me how she could desperately fall in love with a guy who sport a for rent sign on his face ( a in vacant ) and oily 1960s style hair that look more like seaweed and and one of those trendy 21st century beard ( you know and four day growth and no more and no less ) . he suppose to be a dreamy kind of guy ( i think ) and but those eye of his suggest he might be suffer more from overexposure to a preposterous script . but and do not despair and this film be great to look at . just do not try to connect the dot on the red herring or think too much about what youre hearing in the way of dialogue . you can do a lost of fast forwarding on this film ( particularly in the first 40 minute ) and you really would not miss much .