***Get ready for spoilers*** I borrowed this from my local library the other day and watched it tonight. The message of this film is certainly not that if you just keep on trying, you'll succeed. The message is: If the price of success is to have everything you try to do devalued, then success is, in itself, suspect. I do not think this is an anti-American film. Its criticism of America, while valid, is not a hostile one. The viewer must remember that the main character has left Spain for the United States because he feels he's been pigeon-holed in his own country. He returns to Spain after finding that virtually everything he does to advance his career in America is blocked by willfully ignorant social climbers. Here's the big spoiler: Just as the main character locks his New York apartment door behind him for the last time, dropping the keys through the slot for his landlord to retrieve, the apartment phone rings. He misses the news that his photographs have been accepted by LIFE magazine. While we may wish he could get the news that he's finally been accepted, we are supposed to recognize that at this point, he is so exhausted by the runaround people give him that he wouldn't even care if he were told the news. This is not about a loser. This is about what happens to most people who try to succeed. It is refreshing to see something this real. I don't think the main character has reached a desperate place. It's the opposite. He's accepted a bittersweet dose of reality. This is not to say this movie is without anger. It is, indeed, an appeal to the viewer to treat his fellow human being with more understanding.
Review of Skyline
