Under the Same Moon

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Under the Same Moon - or rather, The Same Moon if you're going by a more direct translation of its Spanish-language title, La Misma Luna - is the kind of charming, sappy drama that screams "crowd pleaser". It already won the hearts of Sundance, where it received a standing ovation.

With a universal mother/son theme and extremely likable actors, the praise is understandable - even though it's not quite deserved.

Mexican soap opera actress Kate del Castillo plays Rosario, mother of young Carlitos (Adrian Alonso from The Legend of Zorro). For the past few years, she's been living illegally in the U.S. working as a housekeeper, sending money back home to Mexico for Carlitos and his grandmother. But when the grandmother dies, Carlitos smuggles himself across the border in an attempt to find his mother in Southern California.

Most of the story follows the young boy on his perilous, often cutesy journey, cutting back every so often to keep tabs on Rosario. Young Alonso - who's actually about to turn fourteen but has yet to grow - does a heck of a job carrying the movie on his back; he's got a great presence and is so likable you expect him to get cloying after a while, but he doesn't.

Most of the attention poured on the film will undoubtedly be its stance on immigration. Officially, the filmmakers will tell you that this is not a political film but rather just a simple story about a mother and son, etc, but that's a blatant lie. The expected scenes - the border patrol inspecting the car Carlitos is hiding in; police raiding a plantation to hunt for illegal immigrants - are filmed objectively, but there's a heavy pro- immigrant influence to the whole project. At one point, a song comes on the soundtrack about how Superman should be forced to leave since he's technically an illegal alien; at another point we hear two Mexican DJs riffing on the hypocrisy of Schwarzenegger's anti-immigration policies.

The film is of course entitled to its political views, but let's not pretend they're not there. Before watching the film, I considered myself to be sympathetic toward illegal immigrants' situations, but I actually became a little annoyed by the automatic sense of entitlement that most illegals are presented as having - especially when many of their real-life compatriots actually follow the rules and go through the process of becoming legal citizens.

Worse, these are the only three types of United States citizens portrayed in the film: (A) Wildly cartoonish rich elitists, (B) drug addicts, or (C) whiny young Chicanos who have shunned their Mexican heritage. All the Mexicans, meanwhile, are portrayed as warm, loving, and family-oriented.

If you ignore the political aspects of the film (much like some of you have undoubtedly skimmed over the last three paragraphs), it's a charming and heartwarming adventure, etc. Will Carlitos make it across the border? Will the rough-around-the-edges loner ...