Movie review: 'Gun Hill Road'
Newcomer Harmony Santana's outward embrace of an already well-internalized transformation leaps off the screen with equal parts joy, melancholia and bravery.
By Robert Abele
August 12, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-capsules-20110812,0,1538494.storyAn imprisoned husband and father, released after three years, finds an emotionally shifting new world upon his return home in the urban family drama "Gun Hill Road."
Set in a struggling yet tightly knit Puerto Rican community in the Bronx, writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green's debut feature stars Esai Morales as Enrique, a hardened parolee who averts his eyes when making love to wife Angela (Judy Reyes), who had an affair while he was gone, but can only stare in confused, wounded anger at his transsexually inclined teenage son Michael (Harmony Santana) and worry for how it reflects his own masculinity.
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'Gun Hill Road' review: Harrowing family drama
David Lewis, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2011
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/11/DDPR1KKUJ9.DTLThe story sounds like a recipe for melodramatic excess: A street-hardened, macho convict returns to his family in the Bronx, only to discover that his son has begun to transform into a young woman.
Yet in writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green's assured hands, "Gun Hill Road" manages somehow to be gritty, delicate, in your face and nuanced at the same time.
It's a beautiful, compelling, sometimes harrowing family drama, with excellent performances across the board.
