‘Sujo’ Review: Tense Mexican Drama Plays Like ‘Boyhood,’ Except With the Son of a Sicario as Its Subject

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic The winner of the World Dramatic competition at Sundance, co-directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s understated and essential Mexican drama “Sujo” is one of two films in this year’s lineup (the other being “Ponyboi”) in which children who were given distinctive names by doomed macho dads spend years wondering what those monikers mean.

In both cases, the eventual reveal puts a poignant coda on stories of young Latinos struggling to escape the cycle of ignorance and unhealthy behavior that threatens to pull them under.

An optimistic entry in a traditionally brutal genre, “Sujo” is a story about defying gravity. 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.