LUZ

118 Mins
2020
en

star5.8/ 10

Ruben and Carlos become cellmates in a minimum-security prison. While Ruben struggles to learn the ropes of daily life and where he falls in the complex hierarchical prison system, Carlos becomes a mentor and then eventually a lover. The two men develop feelings for one another they can't easily express. As time moves on and one of them is released before the other, there are questions looming as to whether what they had was real or simply out of the need for human connection.

Review

CinemaSerf

When “Ruben” (Ernesto Reyes) is sent to prison he finds his new cell mate “Carlos” (Jesse Tayeh) an unwelcoming bully of a guy and just about everyone else in there ignores him. Gradually, though, he begins to find his feet, befriend his roomie and they soon have quite a productive little illicit business going. Their friendship becomes a little more intimate but before anything much can come of that, one gets released leaving the other in limbo. Once he too gets released, he rather angrily tracks down his friend having been left in the lurch, but pretty obviously hopes that they can pick up where they left off. Of course there are complications with both men and with their families, but maybe? The two performances here are quite engaging as the two characters have to come to terms with a sexuality that maybe wasn’t as “fluid” as either expected before they met. The dialogue mix of English and Spanish flows naturally and the film looks like some effort has gone into the production as it keeps the visuals simple (and occasionally explicit) allowing the personalities to tell us a fairly straightforward, and occasionally quite poignantly written, love story. Worth a watch.