Gael García Bernal nails his best role in years, giving a performance steeped in cheeky humor, resilience and radical self-belief — not to mention some amazingly nimble moves — as groundbreaking lucha libre wrestler Saúl Armendáriz in Cassandro. Seasoned documentarian Roger Ross Williams, who profiled Armendáriz in 2016 for the Amazon series The New Yorker Presents, makes an assured transition into narrative features with this entertaining biopic, which doubles as a gorgeous depiction of mother-son love and an exhilarating exploration of fearless queer identity in a macho environment.
While Williams (Life, Animated) and co-screenwriter David Teague (who adapted Ta-Nehesi Coates’ Between the World and Me for HBO) slightly fumble the ending, this is a film with enormous heart, vivid immersion into its culturally specific milieu and celebratory admiration for its flamboyant subject, images of whom both in and out of the ring grace the end credits. It should prove popular with both LGBTQ...
While Williams (Life, Animated) and co-screenwriter David Teague (who adapted Ta-Nehesi Coates’ Between the World and Me for HBO) slightly fumble the ending, this is a film with enormous heart, vivid immersion into its culturally specific milieu and celebratory admiration for its flamboyant subject, images of whom both in and out of the ring grace the end credits. It should prove popular with both LGBTQ...
- 1/21/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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