“Temblores” begins where other dramas of its ilk might end. On a rainy night in Guatemala City, the suave, wealthy Pablo ( Juan Pablo Olyslager ), a married father of two, comes home to find that his evangelical family has discovered his relationship with another man. After a histrionic confrontation, Pablo is evicted from the house.

The writer-director Jayro Bustamante provides no back story for Pablo’s affair or its discovery. Instead, this slow-burning, elliptical drama unfolds in the aftermath of that revelation, as Pablo moves into a grimy, inner-city apartment with his lover, Francisco (a resplendently tender Mauricio Armas Zebadúa ). Banned from seeing his children and fired from his job, Pablo oscillates between all-consuming religious guilt and the simple, liberating joys of life with Francisco.