Get the latest gossip
‘Sujo’ Review: Tense Mexican Drama Plays Like ‘Boyhood,’ Except With the Son of a Sicario as Its Subject
Sundance vets Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez ('Identifying Features') won top prize for this optimistic alternative to violent drug war movies.
Like Sleeping Beauty — who manages to prick her finger, even after all of the spinning wheels in the kingdom were thought destroyed — or tragic figures from Greek mythology whose fates are dictated by the gods, the title character seems doomed to follow in the footsteps of his father, Josue (Juan Jesús Varela Hernández), a sicario killed by the same cartel for which he worked. Rondero and Valadez (who collaborated on 2020 Sundance breakout “Identifying Features”) approach the sensationalistic topic of the Mexican drug wars with an art-house sensibility, stripping away the illicit glamour that accompanies more action-oriented south-of-the-border thrillers, like “Miss Bala” or “Sicario.” If anything, it’s more like Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” as the filmmakers check in on Sujo (played by two different actors) over the years. Their script provides just enough information to put the pieces together, suggesting what Josue did to seal his own fate (he killed the son of the local cartel boss) as well as the threat that Sujo was destined to wind up “in the same barrel” where they’ve stuffed his dad’s body.
Or read this on Variety