Cassandro

Premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival at the Premieres Selection.

Firstly, I appreciate the movie exploring a humanistic approach on wrestling within the Mexican and LGBTQ communities as director Roger Ross Williams does a solid job on capturing the essence and atmosphere within the environment and characters. Wrestling isn't something I fully engage with so the movie wasn't something I was able to fully connect with but as a whole, the movie was a solid watch with strong performances and a beautiful visual presentation.

The production and colors are pretty good with the camerawork showing beautiful angles and shots around the setting. Williams direction, while it does feel a little stale, mostly was good as the direction was maintained well and strong. The performances from the cast members are all pretty good as each performances wee strong and engaging. Narrative-wise, the movie is the standard predictable biopic movie and if I had like wrestling, I would have connected with the movie more but since I don't, I struggled to fully engage with the narrative. I mostly found the narrative to be cliche and no fully investing. As the same for the characters. The character of Cassandro is likable as his personality, charm and chemistry is strong but regarding the other characters, I didn't found them to be as interesting or connectable to care much about.

Most of the sound design is good and moments with wrestling were well conducted and choreographed. Pacing does need some improvement. There are some dialogue moments that were a bit rough and not sure if it's just me, I noticed there were some really noticeable ADR moments that did took out the experience a little. Overall, it's a decent biopic.

Fantastic movie. Have not related to my culture like that in a long time. Refreshing. Emotional. Beautiful. Tears. Laughter. All around superb film. I am just trying to get enough characters. THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING IF YOU LIKE GAEL. His performance feels very authentic and heartfelt. Easy to see his connection to the culture. Displays a wonderful relationship between a mother and her lgbtq+ son. We need more movies like this. Family is at the core of most cultures but especially here as well as acceptance. Beautiful display of love, loss, friendship, and making peace with not needing a father to become a man.

I watched some footage of the actual Cassandro after we finished the movie, and it showed just how tame and bloodless this movie was. Why was Gael locked into this one bad haircut when Cassandro had great, grand hair?

This tameness also brings the storytelling down to a very banal level; the love story, the career rise-nothing felt like it had any real stakes. Only the relationship between Saúl and his mother raised this by-the-numbers biopic above the snooze-level.

I'm glad to have learned of this fascinating world of Lucha Libre and this interesting corner of queer culture, the Exoticas, but it could have been so much more fun.

Truly captures a great journey of finding your true self! We need more inspiring movies like this one for both the LGBTQ+ and Mexican communities! Had I known a story like this existed, it would have helped so much growing up. Being part of both communities, I felt so connected to several parts of the film. A film like this is so important to share with future generations! I laughed, I felt the toxic nature of several situations, I truly connected with parts of Cassandro's struggle. Without giving too much away, this is a movie not to be missed. The direction and acting were both stellar and i cannot wait to share this with others!

With equal parts spectacle, grief, sadness, joy, sorry and... (no spoilers) Gael Gabriel Bernal gives us Cassandro! The film avoids most of the sports movie tropes, other than a training video with Sabrina, played by Roberta Colindrez, who is a female luchadora and trainer. She is spot on as Saul's (Cassandro's) friend and the mother is played by well by actress Perla de la Rosa. The whole cast is great and while I am not a fan of Lucho Libre, the film gives us an interesting take on the art form. Cassandro is an exotico (drag queen luchador) and the film is a tribute to the exoticos that came before. The ending does not disappoint.

# Pay full price.