I've no doubt that the story of Reynaldo Arenas could have made an interesting film, but no one involved in the production of this offering seems to have had a clue as to how to go about telling the story in an interesting way. Consequently, we're left with a tedious mess of a film that rambles on for too long, and often seems to forget whatever point it was trying to make.<br /><br />The plot is taken straight out of Arenas' book Before Night Falls, and follows Arenas from childhood, where his teacher notices his writing abilities, through his joining up with Castro's rebels, his days in college, and his adulthood spent being persecuted, and ultimately imprisoned for his homosexuality. Eventually, he escapes to New York City, only to contract AIDS, and be smothered to death by his friend.<br /><br />It's not an uplifting story to begin with, but much could be done with the telling to make it satisfying, as is the case with films like Sophie's Choice. Instead, we get a confusing muddle where fantasy and reality are intertwined to the point where you can't tell which is which. Characters are not well developed, even Arenas is still something of a cipher by the end of the film, and the supporting players are not given any depth at all. Apparently, the writers thought the story would tell itself, and therefore do nothing to help it along. The end result is a script which fails to engage the viewer.<br /><br />Likewise the acting is equally stilted. While visually pleasing, Javier Bardem does nothing to make Arenas an appealing, or even interesting, character. The supporting players do little to differentiate themselves, so it is often hard to remember who is who, and who they are in relation to Arenas. Sean Penn's cameo was horrible, with an embarrassingly bad Spanish accent. And while Johnny Depp plays his parts with gusto, they do little to add much to a film that was already a lost cause by the time he appears on the screen.<br /><br />A person's life story could make a very interesting film, particularly when the person has had as much adversity to overcome as Reynaldo Arenas. Unfortunately, this offering does little to draw you into the story, settling instead for a confusing sequence of facts, which ultimately goes on for way too long. Hardly worth sitting through the first time, much less viewing again.