A multifaceted epic with stunning performances all around. A classic tragedy set in the shifting sands of the Narco wars, revealing a web-like entanglement that spreads from a poor family in El Barrio to a falsely protective, naive upper middle-class family that ignores the crime that surrounds them until it's too late.
Studies of choices in stupidity and infidelity reveal a cascade of events that engulf the 'elite' in a downward spiral until the separate societies; struggling poor and sheltered rich, become leveled in a Shakespearean-like tragedy where all resemblance of former lives are consumed and changed forever. The criminal intrigues pollute the loyalties of both sides which fray and disintegrate into tragic consequences.
Enmeshed within this tale is a love triangle, thankfully minus the obligatory menage-a-trois scene but a fatal love triangle nonetheless. The sympathetic victim-becomes-hero protagonista is an all consuming force-of-nature that along the way pulls all the strings, calls the the shots - no pun intended.
Character development on steroids; occasional gore but only in microseconds; intimacy without any frontal nudity. Not a 'fun' film but a shared experience of people's inhumanity to each other amid the compulsion of lust and the passion of love that survives and even flourishes within this striated and fragmented world. Great directing, only a few plot flaws but acting at the highest pinnacle; highly recommended.
