‘Viva’ a truthful portrait of a father and son

Sometimes fathers and sons are alike, but just as often fathers produce an opposite reaction in physics in their male offspring.

[...] after 20 or 25 years, you end up with two guys staring at each other from different worlds, each wanting something from the other and each wondering, “Who is that guy?” and “How did this happen?”

“Viva” will inevitably be sold on the basis of its two most obvious and least important features: 1 It’s a portrait of Havana, not the colorful side where everybody is singing and the 1950s cars look glamorous, but the Havana that real people — that is, poor people — live in.

[...] 2 It explores, to some extent, the world of drag performers who work in a nightclub, wear flamboyant get-ups and lip-synch to torch songs.

[...] the essential element, where this movie really lives, is in its timeless, universal portrait of a father and grown son getting to know each other.

Dad is played by Jorge Perugorria, a remarkable Cuban actor who does not for one second sentimentalize this father character, who is mostly a brute.

“Viva” — the title comes from Jesus’ drag incarnation — is an unusual cultural hybrid.

In the best way, “Viva” has the feeling of an Irish family drama, about a hard, hard-to-reach and hard-drinking father and a sensitive son.