Thread: Under the Same Moon ': Mother-son story weak around edges

Published Saturday | April 19, 2008
'Under the Same Moon ': Mother-son story weak around edges
BY KENNETH TURAN
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=3 ... d=10313891

HOLLYWOOD — "Under the Same Moon" hasn't been on screen for more than five minutes before one of its characters bursts into tears. If you are in the mood to cry, it won't be long before you, too, will want to get into the act.

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A young Mexican boy (Adrian Alonso) travels to the United States to find his mother (Kate del Castillo) after his grandmother dies.
A crowd-pleaser when it debuted at Sundance 2007 under the title "La Misma Luna," this largely Spanish-language film brings on the waterworks because its core story is undeniably affecting. The whole movie, however, would be more convincing if the elements around that vital core were more dimensional and less contrived.

The movie's strongly beating heart involves the bond between a mother named Rosario (Kate del Castillo) and her 9-year-old son, Carlitos (Adrian Alonso). The two haven't seen each other for four years, since Rosario left Mexico to work illegally in Los Angeles.

She regularly sends money home to take care of Carlitos, who lives with his grandmother and misses his mom something fierce. Their only connection is a Sunday-morning phone call that has taken on the sanctity of a religious ritual.

Under the Same MoonStars: Kate del Castillo, Adrian Alonso

Director: Patricia Riggen

Rating: PG-13 for some mature thematic elements

Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes

Theaters: Oak View 24, Great Escape 16, Star Cinema
But it doesn't take more than one powerful cough from granny to let us know that this arrangement is not fated to last past the first reel. When the inevitable happens, young Carlitos, determined to "find my mother before she forgets me" and helped by an unlikely coyote (America Ferrera of "Ugly Betty" and "Real Women Have Curves"), heads north to locate her.

This setup has several things going for it, including our knowledge that it is based on the painful reality of the sacrifices and the separations legal and illegal immigrant families from numerous countries have gone through.

"Under the Same Moon" has done a fine job of casting its key characters, the mother and the son. Del Castillo, best known for her work in telenovelas, looks both strong-willed and beautiful as the struggling mother. And young Adrian Alonso, recognizable as the masked man's son in "The Legend of Zorro," practically has audiences eating out of his hand as the earnest border-crosser.

Both of these actors, in effect, wear their hearts on their faces, a gift that director Patricia Riggen (like screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos a Mexican native now living in the United States) takes full advantage of. A director with a talent for putting emotion on film, she knows how to get those tears flowing, both on screen and in the theater.

Unfortunately, once "Under the Same Moon" gets past that central mother-son relationship, it relies too heavily on coincidence and obvious plot devices. Obstacles suddenly appear and then magically disappear, crises come and go, and nothing feels as real as we'd like it to.

This problem is especially acute when it comes to the film's few but pivotal English-speaking characters, who come across as evil or feeble or both. Not only do the Anglos tend toward caricature, but none of them has the slightest idea of how to have fun.

The Mexicans, hardworking as well as fun-loving, come off much better. We hear mega-popular L.A. disc jockey El Cucuy, listen to the modern rock group Kinky singing the classic "Superman Es Illegal," and are treated to the music and the appearance of the "norteño" band Los Tigres del Norte.

If the film's other peripheral elements were as successful, this mother and child story would have gotten all the support it needs.

It isn't bad enough I suppose we have to be subjected to the SOB pieces in newspapers across this country in regards to the illegal invaders.

Now we have movies being made whose main objective seems to be the de-criminalization and sympathy garnishing towards those who decided to enter this country in violation of federal immigration laws!

The movie is actually a remake of a Mexican classic film from the early 1970s named get this "Los Illegales". The fact that the subject has not changed and the original had a more honest title says it all.

Just proves how badly we need to start deporting these people for "family reunification"......