Temblores

Temblores, Spanish for "tremors," centers on 40-year-old Guatemalan Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslager Muñoz, effectively somber) who has just come out to his family. The second feature from Ixcanul's Jayro Bustamante defines the moment through disorientation. Inside the mansion, while a storm rages outside, Pablo's evangelical family seems put out that he feels ill. His sister intimates that childhood trauma is to blame. His parents believe that if he just repents, everything will be okay, except he doesn't see himself as a sinner. Then, the tremors begin. They will reoccur towards the end of the film. Pablo's mother believes they're God's punishment, presumably for his homosexuality. After he recovers, Pablo leaves his wife and children to stay with his lover, Francisco (Mauricio Armas Zebadúa, a strong foil), a massage therapist who lives above a bar. While he attempts to forge a new life for himself, Isa (Diane Bathen) sets out to get her revenge. First, her lawyers inform Pablo's consulting firm that he's gay, leading to his firing under a morals clause. Then, she accuses him of pedophilia, which prevents him from seeing his children, so Francisco reaches out to Rosa, the family housekeeper, to see if she can pull some strings. When that doesn't achieve the expected results, Pablo embarks on a conversion regimen which recalls Julianne Moore's similarly quixotic quest in Todd Haynes's Safe, in a bid to curb his homosexual desires. Temblores is consistently downbeat and filmed in a muted color palette, but Bustamante incorporates some unexpected twists and turns, and the entire cast, including Pablo's crisply efficient pastor (Sabrina De La Hoz), rises to the occasion. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)