It has been a year and a half since director Li Cheng’s “José” won the Venice Film Festival’s Queer Lion.
It would be a shame to let the lag time diminish expectations.
After a Lgbtq fest run, the Spanish-language drama — about a young gay man in Guatemala — has opened theatrically and continues to expand.
That it does so steadily, quietly, seems perfectly apt for a drama rife with quotidian grace.Portrayed with unerring soulfulness by newcomer Enrique Salanic, 19-year-old José lives with his mother in a cramped Guatemala City apartment.
Theirs is a hardscrabble life.
She’s increasingly shooed away by police from a spot on the city sidewalks where she sells meat pies.
He hustles a bustling street corner near the restaurant where he works, waving cars toward the curb so that he can carhop food to them.
Some afternoons, he slips away for trysts with men
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