Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Skilled wrestling has at all times had a homoerotic subtext, and in Mexico (the place the “sport” is called “lucha libre”), it’s been proper on the floor due to exóticos: wrestlers in drag who function the queer-signaling foils for heroic straight wrestlers. Recognized for his or her flamboyance and glamor, exóticos are the daring antithesis of their macho adversaries.
Led by an outstanding efficiency by Gael García Bernal, Cassandro is the wild and entertaining story of 1 such particular person, and the trailblazing path he paved by refusing to cover who he was—or to just accept his second-class standing each out and in of the ring.
The fictional characteristic debut of Roger Ross Williams, the primary Black filmmaker to nab an Academy Award (for 2010’s documentary quick Music by Prudence), Cassandro is a showcase for its headliner, whose flip because the real-life title character—whose precise identify is Saúl Armendáriz—is a tour-de-force of open, vibrant, defiant expressiveness.
Bernal has at all times been an completed main man with the spirit of a personality actor, and his newest supplies him with the half for which he’s been ready, permitting him to show the vary of his ferocity, appeal and sensitivity. By no means taking a mistaken step because the famed exótico, Bernal is a charismatic drive of nature, his magnetism so nice that it elevates Williams’ drama above its clunkier, clichéd parts.
Photograph by Frazer Harrison/Getty Photos
Premiering at this yr’s Sundance Movie Pageant, Cassandro opens with its protagonist—his hair bleach-blonde on high, his body match however hardly ripped—arriving at an auto storage the place he dons a face masks like his fellow wrestlers and, underneath the moniker El Topo (i.e., the Mouse), provides it his all in a predetermined dropping effort towards a goliath often called Gigantico (performed by one of many movie’s many respectable luchadors). For Saúl, it’s an unrewarding function that seems to vow a way forward for inescapable also-ran anonymity, and it’s to this point much less interesting to him than the exóticos who subsequently take heart stage.
Embellished with daring make-up and encased in glitzy costumes, the exóticos’ unabashed showiness is a shiny gentle on this dingy, testosterone-y setting. In a superbly delicate shot that—set to the romantic horns of Marcelo Zarvos’ rating—follows Saúl’s gaze to at least one such performer, they transfix Saúl’s consideration and, in doing so, recommend to him a attainable method out of his go-nowhere rut.
This second proves to be an epiphany for Saúl, motivating him to hunt out revered coach Sabrina (Roberta Colindrez), who performs underneath the deal with “Woman Anarquía," and who takes to Saúl and his daring thought: to embody a brand new exótico named Cassandro, who bucks custom by going maskless and, extra gorgeous nonetheless, profitable.
In an enviornment wherein exóticos are anticipated to roll over for opponents and undergo the prejudiced slings and arrows of the gang, Saúl intends to fabulously spit within the eye of an institution that doesn’t take kindly to alter. In doing so, he strives to be his genuine self, one thing that’s made harder by his fraught relationship with two males who can’t settle for homosexuality and share the same sample of betrayal, deceit and abandonment.
The primary of these is Saúl’s father Eduardo (Robert Salas), who was married and had a household when he started his dalliance with Saúl’s mom Yocasta (Perla de la Rosa). But to get well from his rejection, Yocasta habitually drags her son to a baseball diamond the place she will intently pine after her former flame. A brash working-class lady with a keenness for leopard-print attire, Yocasta is extra like a greatest pal than a mother to Saúl, and she or he’s definitely his inspiration (together with telenovela actresses) for Cassandro’s daring aptitude.
Sadly, although, Saúl has additionally adopted in his mom’s footsteps on the subject of his love life, having grow to be mired in an affair with a fellow luchador named Gerardo (Raúl Castillo), who has a spouse and children and solely agrees to see Saúl in empty dressing rooms and, through the again door, in his home when his clan is away.
Photograph by David Becker/Getty Photos for Prime Video
Cassandro is such an immediate sensation that he instantly catches the attention of legal promoter Lorenzo (Narcos: Mexico’Joaquín Cosío), who places him on the quick observe to stardom whereas having his underling Felipe (Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, aka Dangerous Bunny) provide him with all of the cocaine he wants. Cassandro’s ascent is swift, albeit not with out issues, as Yocasta frets concerning the hazard her son courts together with his out-and-proud way of life, and Gerardo—with whom he shares a fiery chemistry—bristles at his paramour’s refusal to stay hidden within the shadows.
Cassandro navigates these dynamics with aplomb, showering most of its characters with empathy whereas attuning itself to Saúl’s unashamed brazenness, which involves full-bodied fruition when he makes his entrances as Cassandro, his eyes alight with exuberant, taunting insolence and his actions as playful as they're vigorous.
Bernal radiates fireball persona as Cassandro, but the important thing to his tour-de-force is the concurrently cheeky and wounded soul he brings to Saúl. There’s no guile to Bernal’s efficiency, solely a triumphant mix of audaciousness, love, and want. He’s so spectacular that it’s comparatively simple to miss Cassandro’s devolution into creaky Sundance-grade conference, right here epitomized by a painful tragedy, a TV talk-show look wherein a younger boy thanks Saúl for uplifting him to come back out as homosexual (to an accepting father, no much less), and a last confrontation between Saúl and his personal MIA paterfamilias.
That Bernal sells as a lot of this corny materials as he does is a testomony to his poised, sleek work, and he permits the movie to coast over its pace bumps on the way in which to a feel-good climax involving Saúl seizing his shot on the large time in Mexico Metropolis towards luchador legend Son of Santo.
Reverse robust turns from Colindrez, de la Rosa and the persistently glorious Castillo, Bernal infuses Cassandro with the tenderness and dedication demanded by its story, reworking the proceedings right into a touching portrait of adjusting the world by understanding, and staying true, to at least one’s coronary heart.
Cassandro will not be as well-known stateside as Hulk Hogan and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, however no matter its intermittent shortcomings, Williams’ movie makes a profitable case that, by selling a pioneering imaginative and prescient of queer power and independence, he deserves to be thought of a wrestling legend.
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