Gael Garcia Bernal in The King

At the press junket for his new film The King, Gael Garcia Bernal was asked about his dream role. "I always wanted to play Che Guevara," the young actor joked. Bernal, of course, has already achieved that ambition, playing the young Che, an idealistic medical student who journeys across South America in Walter Salles' Motorcycle Diaries (2004). Bernal was able to imbue the iconic revolutionary with both larger-than-life idealism and an endearing boyishness.

Bernal first gained notice in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores Perros (2000). With his hilarious, sensitive portrait of a horny, idealistic Mexican teen in Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), he gained an international audience. Now he has two new projects that promise to send him soaring to the dangerous land of super stardom. He is currently hitting the red carpet at Cannes to promote Babel, Iñárritu's latest film, which takes place on four continents and features a high profile cast that includes Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. "The most beautiful woman on the planet," Bernal swooned about Blachett, seemingly unaware of the effect that he tends to have on others. "And I mean the planet." He is also starring in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep, a huge hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival that is scheduled to open later this year.

Gael Garcia Bernal's upcoming projects are so hot, in fact, that it would be easy to overlook the tense little independent film that opened last week to critical acclaim. The King, directed by documentary filmmaker James Marsh (Wisconsin Death Trip) and based on a script co-written by Marsh and Oscar-nominee Milo Addica (Monster's Ball), deserves a large audience. In his first role in English, Bernal's lead performance as Elvis, recently discharged from the Navy and in search of the father he has never met, is utterly disarming.

Elvis is a complicated character, inscrutable from the film's beginning to the end. On the surface, Elvis seems almost simple: handsome, happy, and easygoing. He has no trouble locating his father in Corpus Christi, Texas. Played by William Hurt sporting a marvelous, handlebar mustache, David Sandow is a born-again preacher with a thriving church, complete with a flashing neon sign out front. He has a happy life: a wife (Laura Harring) and two perfect teenage children, Paul (Paul Dano) and a Malerie (Pell James.)

When Elvis finds himself rejected by his father, he turns his considerable charm to his beautiful, sixteen-year-old sister. His sister. Without explaining his true relation to the family, Elvis begins the slow and gentle seduction of, yes, his sister. As the older outsider, on his way to stealing the innocence of a naive, country girl, Elvis mirrors the Martin Sheen role in Terence Malick's Badlands. For that matter, Pell James has a unique, somehow indefinable quality that is every bit comparable to Sissy Spacek at that stage in her career. The developing romance in The King, however, has far more tension than Badlands because it is impossible to forget the fact that the potential lovers are siblings.

Watching The King is a mesmerizing, nerve-wracking experience. Bernal meanwhile heightens the tension with his ever-present angelic smile. Even though his actions are often the definition of evil itself, Elvis miraculously comes across as good. It's difficult not to sympathize with that smile. Bernal was the director's first and only casting choice. It would be impossible to imagine the role played by another actor.

Marsh's assured direction has a timeless quality. Were it not for the hulking SUVs cruising the dusty streets, The King could easily be taking place in 1950s America. The almost minimalist screenplay takes on taboos head on: besides creating the enormous discomfort that comes with the possibility of incest, The King also explores the convictions of Bible Belt fundamentalists with a frankness worthy of a Da Vinci Code-size controversy. (Both films, coincidently, opened on the same day.)