Review: In 'Cassandro,' Gael Garcia Bernal pins the emotional heart of an iconic Mexican wrestler

The Mexican actor and heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal gives a tour-de-force performance in “Cassandro,” an absorbing biopic of perhaps the most unlikely icon in the world of lucha libre, or Mexican wrestling.

Garcia Bernal plays Saúl Armendáriz, an American-born wrestler performing in the 1990s in the low-end circuit of lucha libre in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border from the home he shares with his mother (Perla De La Rosa) in El Paso, Texas. Because he’s small — Armendáriz is 5-foot-5-1/2, Garcia Bernal is 5-foot-7 — Saúl usually plays the runt who has to go up against the hulking brutes; his stage name, when we meet him, is “El Topo” aka The Mole.

Saúl wants to improve as a wrestler, so he get a trainer, Sabrina (Roberta Colindrez), who suggests he wrestle as an exotico, a popular lucha libre figure who dresses in drag and makes exaggerated effeminate gestures. Saúl, taking the stage name Cassandro, agrees, though he plans to be different than other exoticos — one, because most exoticos are straight, where Saùl is gay; and two, that he will win his matches, which under the traditions of lucha libre, they’re not allowed to do.

In his first matches as Cassandro, Saúl endures the crowd’s jeers and the other wrestlers’ disrespect. But when he shows he can take down the bigger wrestlers, and win the crowd over to his side, he starts getting notice. And with the help of a well-connected promoter, Lorenzo (Joaquín Cosío), Saúl gets better gigs and bigger paydays.

With his success comes lots of partying, booze and cocaine. After being rejected by Lorenzo’s fixer, Felipe (Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny), he has an affair with another wrestler, Gerardo (Raúl Castillo, from “The Inspection”), though they keep it a secret from Gerardo’s wife and kids.

Director Roger Ross Williams, a documentarian making his feature debut, and his writing partner, David Teague, hit the high spots of Cassandro’s career — culminating in his biggest match, against the legend of lucha libre, El Hija del Santo (who plays himself). They take some emotional short cuts in the script, concentrating on his relationship with his supportive mother and the absence of his father, a born-again Christian who rejected his son because he’s gay.

Garcia Bernal captures the flamboyance of Cassandro’s persona in the ring — his craftiness as he takes down bigger opponents by using their size and their homophobia against them — and the battered survivor in private, taking his rejections to fuel his art. It’s a performance that makes “Cassandro” a winner.

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‘Cassandro’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 15, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City); begins streaming September 22 on Prime. Rated R for language, drug use and sexual content. Running time: 107 minutes; in English and Spanish, with subtitles.