"Manito" sees an everyday tragedy with sadness and tenderness, and doesn't force it into the shape of a plot. At the end, the screen goes dark in the same way a short story might end; there isn't one of those final acts where we learn the meaning of it all. Sometimes in life bad things happen and they just happen. There's nothing you could have done, and no way to fix them, and you are never going to get over the pain.
The movie, a heartfelt debut by writer-director Eric Eason, takes place in Washington Heights, a Latino neighborhood of New York City, where we meet the Moreno family. Junior (Franky G.) runs a plastering and painting crew, and his kid brother Manny (Leo Minaya) is an honor student who is graduating today from high school, and headed to Syracuse on a scholarship.