“My mom said that when I miss her, I should look at the moon, because she’d be looking at it too,” says our 9-year-old protagonist Carlos Reyes (Adrian Alonso) in the Mexican movie, Under The Same Moon.

Road To Liberty

Growing up in rural Mexico hasn’t been easy for little Carlos (or Carlitos), but he has it better than other kids, getting goodies like new shoes and even a birthday party. His mom, Rosario (Kate Del Castillo), sends home a fat cheque of $200 every month for him to support himself and his grandmother.

Unfortunately, this $300 is also the price of years of separation between the single mother and her son, as Rosario is across the border in the U.S. working as a cleaner. Carlitos yearns to be reunited with his mother and the only contact he has with her is the phone call she makes to a phone booth near his home at 10am sharp every Sunday.

The morning after his 9th birthday, Carlitos finds that his grandmother has died in her sleep. Afraid to fall into the hands of his scheming uncle who wants to adopt him for the monthly cheque, Carlitos breaks his piggy bank and pays a Chicano brother (Jesse Garcia) and sister (Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera) pair to smuggle him across the border so he can look for his mother. The bright little boy plans to find her before she realises that he’s gone missing during her Sunday call.

Director Patricia Higgens debut film effort shows plenty of promise. Dealing with the sticky issue of the plight of illegal immigrants in “the land of the free”, it gives a human face to the many who’ve risked their lives crossing the border.

Carlitos gets into trouble with many shady characters along the way after losing all his money. But he also meets many a kindhearted soul, like a woman who rescues him from a kidnapping drug addict and scruffy, hard-hearted Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), an illegal immigrant like Rosario, whose tough exterior Carlitos manages to soften up along the way.

“No one chooses to live this way, Carlitos, unless they have a good reason. I’m sure for her, you’re that reason,” Enrique tells the little boy after he hears of how he is worried that his mother has abandoned him for America.

The ‘way’ Enrique is referring to hard way of life of poor Mexicans who’ve illegally crossed the border into the U.S. in search of a better life, usually working multiple blue-collar jobs and constantly fleeing from the migra, or immigration officials.

Enrique himself is a loner who goes around with the very clothes on his back, working as a tomato harvester and going on the run whenever the migra decide to raid his workplaces. It’s a hard life, but at least it’s better than starving back in Mexico.

On the other hand, Rosario is has the option of marrying a decent security guard named Paco (Gabriel Parras), who happens to be a legal citizen of the U.S.. Though this could be an avenue to getting proper citizenship both for herself and Carlitos, she’s hesitant about marrying without love.

Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth

The film shows many sparks of excellent directing, with excellent use of camera techniques and angling to aid in the storytelling. Despite the lineup of cliche? storylines and the tried-tested-and-proven mother-and-child reunions put in place by scriptwriter Ligiah Villalobos, the movie just seems to work out with cleverly phrased lines that capture the essence of the characters and situations.

Unfortunately, with an audience that isn’t familiar with the Mexican showbiz scene, the overload of unfamiliar Latino faces is a little too much to handle.

The 106 mins are jam-packed with over 40 different characters. Most of them play seemingly important roles at the beginning of the movie but simply disappear out of the storyline just as the audience is getting familiar with them and starting to understand their role in Carlitos’ journey.

For example, America Ferrara, a familiar face from Ugly Betty, appears early in the film. Since she’s like a ‘bigger name’ here than Alonso and Del Castillo, we assume that she’d be playing a major role after smuggling Alonso’s character across the border. Unfortunately, she never reappears again.

Not only is there insufficient character development for most of the roles, this arrangement also confuses the audience who can’t decide who to pay attention to. It doesn’t help that several of the supporting cast members give stiff, unconvincing performances that made UrbanWire cringe.

The Trio That Make You Go “Awww”

That being said, the performance baby-faced Alonso, playing a role of a boy 4 years younger than his actual age of 13, is remarkably heartwarming. Carlitos never fails to charm with his earnest smile and cheerful optimism. The “9-year-old man” also shows a maturity beyond his years and easily croons, dances and laughs his way into even the coldest of hearts.

Del Castillo, also delivers noteable performance as Alonso’s screen mother. Looking like a Lindsay Lohan aged by another 15 years, she manages to project the feelings of desperation, heartache and strain her character is going through decently.

Though illegal female migrant workers aren’t common in Singapore, Del Castillo’s role makes us think twice about what our foreign domestic workers are going through while trying to make a living here in Singapore.

Derbez’s depiction of Enrique is also pretty remarkable and it makes you look at illegal immigrant labourers beyond the television images of squatting figures with lowered heads during police raids. As one of the top comedians in Mexican showbiz, it definitely isn’t an easy transition into drama, but he takes to it like a
duck to the water. With his weathered face, scruffy stubble, stained clothes, furrowed brows and grouchy glare, he carries off the toughness of the vagrant labourer very convincingly. The softer moments of his performance are played out purely by his expressive eyes, as his character learns about sacrifice and what it is like to love and be loved.

Verdict

Under The Same Moon does well in terms of directing, though half the cast could afford to be fired because they turned out to be pretty useless. If you’re bad with names and faces, concentrate just on Carlitos, Rosario and Enrique (who appears rather late in the film), so as to avoid people overload. A humanizing film for an inhumane world.

UrbanWire gives Under the Same Moon 3.5 out of 5 stars
Movie Details
Opens: Jul 24
Movie Rating: PG
Genre: Drama
Running Time: 106 mins
Language: Spanish (with English Subtitles)
Cast: Adrian Alonso, Kate Del Castillo, Eugenio Derbez
Director: Patricia Higgens
Images courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.