Though many real-life suicide attempts are ultimately cries for help, suicide attempts in comedies tend to function as cries for life-affirming tomfoolery, to be treated through character-building adventures with a partner capable of truly appreciating life. That's certainly the case for Carmelo Gómez, the lanky, sad-eyed, suicidal bus driver at the center of Living It Up: La Gran Vida, an old-fashioned Spanish romantic comedy crudely dubbed into English to capitalize on co-star Salma Hayek's American following. Tired of life and fed up with the Sisyphian nature of his job, Gómez travels to a bridge to commit suicide. There, he meets enigmatic CPA Tito Valverde, who offers him an opportunity to live it up for one last week by "borrowing" a massive sum of money from the mob. Though understandably suspicious as to why mobsters would hand over a huge amount of capital to a meek stranger, Gómez accepts Valverde's offer, and soon trades in his ratty apartment for a mansion and his celibate lifestyle for a whirlwind romance with sassy, class-conscious maid Hayek. But while Gómez grows to love his new life of wanton material excess, doubts remain. Is Hayek who she says she is? And could Valverde possibly be defrauding the mob for less-than-humanitarian purposes? Farfetched even by the exceedingly lenient standards of the comic romantic fantasy, Living It Up is riddled with plot holes that wouldn't be such a problem if the film were half as frothy and fun as it aspires to be. Unfortunately, the filmmakers are as devoid of imagination as their amiable but nondescript protagonist, whose conception of living the good life doesn't extend much beyond filling a swimming pool with champagne and indulging in the occasional Pretty Woman-style shopping-at-expensive-stores montage. Carlos Asorey and Fernando León de Aranoa's hokey script begs to be handled with a light touch, but television veteran Antonio Cuadri directs with a deadly earnestness that eschews the fizzy energy necessary to keep this rickety contraption afloat.