Emotional rescue

>>A boy sets out on a journey to find his
mother in the sentimental but effective
Under the Same Moon

by MALCOLM FRASER

In the Sundance-approved drama Under the Same Moon, Rosario (Kate del Castillo) is a Mexican working illegally as a cleaning woman in Los Angeles. For reasons that are never made entirely clear, she left her son Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), now nine, at home in Mexico to be raised by his grandmother. She sends him money and calls him every Sunday. But when the grandmother kicks the bucket, Alonso decides to take matters into his own hands and cross the border to find his mom.

Within the very first minutes of the film, first-time director Patricia Riggen and screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos’s agenda is clear: shameless sentimentality, with copious use of swelling strings, is the order of the day. The plot is as predictable as a math equation (the only exception being a couple of loose subplots that are left hanging), the emotional toil of the separated mother and son is milked at every turn, and the characters are either angelic or demonic; the only hint of character development is a rogue who turns out to have a heart of gold.

All that being said, the film never makes any pretence of being something other than an out-and-out melodrama, so it has to be evaluated on its own terms, and by the standards of the genre, it’s well executed and emotionally effective. The pint-sized Alonso is likeable, and though he’s a young-looking 14, still has quite the acting chops for his age. The rest of the cast, including a cameo from Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera as a hapless would-be smuggler, deliver solid performances.

There’s an interesting political subtext to the film, simply in its depiction of the hardships illegal immigrants face—literally doing the U.S.’s dirty work, and then being treated as non-persons for all their efforts—but it’s largely left unexplored in favour of the soap-operatic drama.

Even this cynical, black-hearted viewer found himself swept up in the film’s synthesis of predictability and manipulation—we know exactly how the story is going to end, but the filmmakers spare no dramatic obstacle to the characters right up to the conclusion. So if you enjoy a tug at the heartstrings, this delivers emotional porn the old-fashioned way.

Under the Same Moon opens
this Friday, April 11

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