‘UNDER THE SAME MOON’ ** 1/2
The following is a capsule version of Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips’ review of “Under the Same Moon,” which ran in Wednesday’s Tempo section. For the full review, please visit bancodeprofissionais.com/movies.
“Under the Same Moon” does a lot of little things on the cheap, emotionally speaking. Yet it gets one big thing right. Through the eyes of its hardy 9-year-old protagonist, the film relays an immigration story heightening the experience of countless subterranean immigration stories written each year in America. They deserve a more nuanced film, but this one’s often affecting.
Rosario (Kate del Castillo, an honest and vivid presence) heads north from Mexico and finds work as a domestic in Los Angeles while her 9-year-old son, Carlitos (the deft sympathy magnet Adrian Alonso), lives with his ailing grandmother.
When the grandmother dies, the boy heads north to join his mother. He finds a makeshift guardian in the surly migrant worker played by Eugenio Derbez (a bit too much of a scene-stealer).
By the time director Patricia Riggen arrives in L.A., the audience has been laid out, usually with the pathos equivalent of a trowel.
Yet “Under the Same Moon” cannot help but destroy your defenses at its climax.
What does it say about a film when you believe only parts of the journey, yet are moved by the arrival? It says that the film has succeeded to an approximate three-fifths point.
Running time: 1:49.
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some mature thematic elements).
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mjphillips@tribune.com
