Buzz Blog

Cassandro **
Director Roger Ross Williams has had a long, successful career as a documentary filmmaker, and it’s hard not to feel that this biopic based on the life of lucha libre wrestler Saúl “Cassandro” Armendáriz (Gael García Bernal) would have been much more compelling in non-fiction form. The story begins with the openly-gay Saúl working small-time wrestling gigs across the border from his El Paso home, struggling to gain a foothold. Then he opts to embrace the tradition of the exótico—effeminate stereotypes generally serving as the villains in matches—with the aim of becoming an exótico the crowd might actually root for. Williams and co-screenwriter David Teague do find some unexpected angles, including the way that Saúl’s mother (Perla de la Rosa) and most of his wrestling colleagues don’t make too big a deal of his homosexuality. But by soft-selling the homophobia Saúl actually faced early in his career, they introduce surprisingly little tension into his narrative, which leans heavily on a fraught but too abstract relationship between Saúl and his absentee father. Along the way, we’re offered underdog-sports tropes like the “winning streak” montage, and a performance by Bernal that allows us to see the joy of someone celebrating his authentic self. Otherwise, it feels like the result of someone who doesn’t understand that a narrative arc should actually feel like an arc, rather than a straight line. Available Sept. 15 at Broadway Centre Cinemas; Sept. 22 via Amazon Prime Video. (R)

A Haunting in Venice **
See feature review. Available Sept. 15 in theaters. (PG-13)

Love at First Sight ***
When a movie’s entire premise is built on two people clicking immediately, you damn well better hope that the actors can pull it off—and that’s exactly what carries this adaptation of Jennifer E. Smith’s YA novel The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight through its rough patches. It opens with 20-year-old Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) missing a flight from New York to London for her father’s re-marriage, resulting in an airport meet-cute with British grad student Oliver (Ben Hardy), who coincidentally enough also becomes her transatlantic seat-mate. Director Vanessa Caswill and screenwriter Katie Lovejoy lean into the twinkly mysteries of fated romance, including Jameela Jamil’s multiple roles as an omniscient narrator-cum-fairy godmother. But the heart of it belongs to the connection between Hadley and Oliver, which emerges through Hardy’s low-key charm and the seemingly bottomless talents of Richardson, who lends a soulfulness to a character that risks playing as petulantly cynical. Their scenes together are quite lovely—so much so, that the plot machinations that divide them in London result in scenes without nearly as much energy, as we tap our toes waiting for what we hope is the “happily ever after.” The result is a love story that convincingly sells the path from attraction to infatuation to actual gotta-work-for-it love. Available Sept. 15 via Netflix. (PG-13)

Sundance Shorts 2023 **1/2
It’s often the case that short films are made as “calling cards” by filmmakers who want to turn their idea into a feature; I wish it weren’t the case that so many of the entries in this collection of shorts from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival didn’t feel exactly like that. It gets off to a great start with Aemilia Scott’s Help Me Understand, where the premise of a focus group for a new laundry detergent scent pivots unexpectedly from absurdist comedy to genuine emotion. And there’s another highlight in the French stop-motion animation Inglorious Liaisons, where the rituals of a teen party obscure the genuine desires of some of the attendees. But a few of the more earnest pieces play as incomplete versions of a compelling idea: Liz Sargent’s Take Me Home, about the sister of a developmentally disabled young woman dealing with new responsibilities after the death of their mother; Rest Stop, with a Ugandan immigrant moving her family from New York to Oklahoma; When You Left Me on That Boulevard, a stoned-teen’s-eye-view of Thanksgiving with her extended Filipino family. Short films can be satisfying snippets of fully-realized ideas, like the college graduate stuck in a dead-end retail job in Pro Pool. They’re much more frustrating when it feels like you’re committing yourself to what amounts to a 15-minute extended trailer. Available Sept. 15 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)