Gun Hill Road

"Like father, like son" certainly does not apply to the central characters of "Gun Hill Road", the emotionally astute Bronx-set drama that played Sundance this year.

As the film opens, typically machismo-laden Enrique (Esai Morales) returns from three years in prison to a son and wife with whom he has lost touch--and a guns-and-gambling street life, to which he seems to re-connect with much more easily.

Enrique's return is not easy for Michael (Harmony Santana), who is now sixteen and disinterested in baseball and the things that bonded him to his father before he was sent off. Enrique initially seems willfully oblivious to his son's transformation. When, during a tense dinner, Michael's flat response to Enrique's excited announcement that he bought baseball tickets for them reveals that his son's interest has faded, he proceeds to ask Michael which sport he now follows. Enrique fails to connect and to recognize the fundamental changes that have and are still taking place within his family.

What is understood between Michael and his friends, his mother, Angela (Judy Reyes), and even her lover, Hector (Vincent Laresca), is that Michael harbors a strong desire to be female. He is a typical trans-teen, taking a keen interest in feminine fashion and modes of expression. This, not surprisingly, earns him teasing from schoolmates, and so it's also no surprise that he is timid in the face of his tough father's return to his life.

This clash between father and son is gripping as it unfolds, because both actors do well to portray the deep-rooted familial affinity that beats beneath the ostensibly insurmountable difference between them. One has to wonder how they will manage to find common ground, as they are both steadfast in their ways--and in their gender expressions.

This is largely a trans coming-of-age story, and Michael--known as Vanessa at the poetry open mic he frequents, and wherever else it is cool for him to go as a woman--is astoundingly confident in his/her identity despite being green.

A worthwhile film could be made of both Michael's coming into his own as a Latina trans-girl, and of Enrique's adjustment to the outside world and his grappling with the dangerous allure of a chulo existence, but the convergence of these plot lines makes for quite a singularly volatile and touching narrative that, fortunately, is handled with subtlety and sympathy on all sides.