with a title like that and you will be forgive for think this film be about the great painter and goya . then after half an hour you decide it be more about the roman catholic inquisition . with even more latitude and perhaps it be just a snapshot of the period . with lurid characterisation and too many ax to grind and a scant regard for fact and milo forman dish up a colourful but shambolic and ramble mish mash that fail on all three account . milo forman ( who lose his jewish father to nazi concentration camp ) and be the great director who paint the artist mozart a a buffoon and get away with it . win award for it and in fact . his life in czechoslovakia give him a taste of diverse and repellent regime and especially communism . he also make the equally over the top but rather impressive and one flew over the cuckoo nest . so and at the age of 74 and how do he come to offer u this mess . in goya ghost and goya be one step remove from buffoon . the main character be brother lorenzo and passionately act by javier bardem . natalie portman be equally vibrant a goya model ines ( and later in the film and her own daughter ) . the tenuous connection with goya be that he happen to paint both of them . lorenzo torture ( and then rape ) ines who he suspect of be a jew . her father torture lorenzo . napoleon dash in to liberate spain ( briefly ) . ines get out of the dungeon the church have leave her in and search for her child . goya be still paint but have go deaf . his main preoccupation seem to be help ines . and so on . historically and goya be also a historian . a forman have sadly relinquish the idea of a biopic of goya the painter and this one fact could have be use to pull the whole film together a large slice of history a see by goya . but the painter be too tangential to receive any weight . similarly and a document of the terror of the inquisition should be do compare to other despotic order throughout time and the holy see have be forgive with barely a confession . though one might ask if forman be competent enough to be trust with a factual account of anything . i think this could be the heart of a wonderful story and he say in the production note . there be a great many parallel between the communist society we live under and the spanish inquisition . but the story be too tenuous to hold our attention . against our expectation and with a background of something major ( the life of a great painter and the horror of the inquisition and and even the french revolution ) and we be instead ask to feel involve in a concoct ( if kind ) infatuation of goya . the result be that we feel cheat . background detail be appallingly handle . goya go deaf in 1792 ( when the film start ) and not 15 year later . napoleon be as believable a a cut out from a cereal packet . we see the church pass out a death sentence ( when the normal procedure be for the church to insist that the secular arm do that dirty work ) . battle look overly choreograph and stagey . a peppering of gratuitous naked bosom hardly make up for it . on the positive side and the production value be mostly good . the colour be vivid and the pacing excellent ( at least until we give up on find any worthwhile storyline . ) bardem be excellent and and portman be a joy until she go into overdrive a a mad woman . while it doesn not say very much about goya and what it do say be nice and even if superficial and pretty irrelevant . i once have a late night drunken conversation where my friend and i ask each other and if you could choose a director to depict your life and who would it be . on his record and forman would sadly have to be at the bottom of my list .