MONDAYS IN THE SUN []

A stirring character study. In Spanish with English subtitles. Running time: 115 minutes. Rated R (language). At the Angelika and the New York 1 and 2.

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WRITER-director Fernando León de Aranoa’s stirring, character-driven study of the effects of unemployment on a band of fortysomething Spanish men is full of little sadnesses.

But there’s also enough laconic humor, warming camaraderie and hopeful stabs at dignity to keep the story from assuming the glum gunmetal gray of its setting on the coast of northwestern Spain.

A group of discontented souls who were laid off three years previously when the town’s shipyard closed down gather regularly to drown their sorrows at a desolate and joyless bar, which one of their former colleagues bought with his severance pay.

The charismatic Javier Bardem provides the magnetic core of the film as Santa, the self-appointed leader of the group. He’s a likable rogue with a balding widow’s peak, beefy paunch and hearty, infectious laugh.

He’s also highly principled and stubborn, as evidenced by his refusal to pay a measly 8,000-peseta fine he incurred for breaking a streetlamp during a riotous demonstration against the closing of the shipyard.

Santa uses bluster to keep despair at bay; his motley crew of friends employ other means.

Amador (Celso Bugallo) is slowly drinking himself to death, waiting for the return of a wife who is gone for good.

Lino (José Angel Egid) – who secretly dyes the gray out of his hair and borrows his son’s clothes to give himself half a chance in a young person’s job market – remains determinedly optimistic as he embarks on a seemingly endless round of interviews.

Meanwhile, José (Luis Tosar) dies a little every time he sees his beautiful wife Ana (Nieve de Medina) head off to work a grueling shift at the tuna-canning factory.

In an affecting exchange, the devoted José allays his wife’s concerns that she stinks of fish by telling her she “smells like a mermaid.”

Sharp dialogue, particularly from the silver-tongued Santa, bolsters de Aranoa’s film – which was Spain’s controversial submission for last year’s Foreign Language Oscar over Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her” – but there’s a message, too. Being able to bask in the sun on a Monday is not always a luxury.