Tasked with removing a dead body from a well in Yugoslavia, a group of courageous aid workers, who after the end of the Yugoslavia War, has to remove that body to save the water from being polluted by that body, but they face the corruption of the government.
What the film does well is to immerse us in the tragic weirdness of wartime logic, where nothing works as we would expect. It's a strong, engaging film about how hard it is to wage peace.
Del Toro's low-key resignation gives the film what power it has, but the female characters (played by Mélanie Thierry and Olga Kurylenko) are disappointingly thin.
With an eclectic soundtrack, well-timed editing and crisp cinematography - and of course that terrific cast led by the great Del Toro - A Perfect Day is a rough-edged gem.
[de Aranoa is] a director at home with the small things that can make a film great -- interested in what keeps people together when everything around them is being blown apart. It's a wonderful gift.
A taut, darkly comic drama about the dilemmas of international intervention in civil war, all of it neatly symbolized by one elusive length of rope. It is also, sadly, a film much marred by its sexism.