Under the Same Moon
by Patricia Riggen
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DVD details
Actor: Adrian Alonso, Carmen Salinas, Eugenio Derbez, Kate del Castillo, Maya ZapataDirector: Patricia Riggen
Brand: Fox
Producer: Checco Varese
Producer: Emilia Arau
Producer: Gerardo Barrera
Producer: Gina Amador
Producer: Hani Selim
Producer: Ligiah Villalobos
Writer: Ligiah Villalobos
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 106 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-17
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Under the Same Moon
DVD Review: A gripping and excellent story.
Summary: 5 Stars
The film trods the well-worn theme of courage in the face of adversity. We have seen that before, in GRAPES OF WRATH with Henry Fonda. We have seen that more recently in AKEELAH AND THE BEE, with Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett.
LA MISMA LUNA spends much time with various misadventures of actor Adrian Alonso, who plays a 9-year old boy. Early in the movie, he must hide underneath an automobile seat to be smuggled into the U.S., with the goal of meeting his long-lost mother in Los Angeles. The boy is almost caught, during the border inspection. Also, the viewer worries about him suffering from heat exhaustion since he must hide in a hot automobile. America Ferrera of SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELLING PANTS, plays one of the smugglers driving the car. Then, the car is towed to El Paso (with the boy still under the seat).
Once in the impoundment lot in El Paso, the boy escapes and meets up with a drug addict in a bus station. The boy wants the drug addict to drive him back to the impoundment lot, where he had accidently dropped his money (a wad of dollar bills). The drug addict is nervous and tense, and cavorts with dealers and pimps. When it turns out that the wad of money is no longer at the lot, the drug addict becomes more nervous and threatening.
Eugenio Derbez meets up with the boy, during tomatoe-picking work in a greenhouse (in real life, Eugenio Derbez is a Mexican actor who usually plays comedic roles). Eugenio is an illegal alien, who lives on a day-to-day basis, finding jobs picking vegetables or washing dishes in restaurants. He tries to get rid of Adrian (the 9-year old) and tells him to stop following him like a puppy. Another cliff-hanger occurs, when the I.N.S. invade a tomato greenhouse, and try to round up the illegal aliens. Adrian and Eugenio escape.
A turning point occurs, when a group of low-life thugs approaches Adrian, with thoughts of roughing him up, and stealing his backpack (another cliff-hanger). From that point on, Eugenio decides to take care of Adrian, and to ensure that he arrives in L.A. (to find his mother). The greatest moment in this film (in a film with many great moments), occurs when the police arrive to pick up the boy and Eugenio, sleeping in a city park. Eugenio runs away, and yells at the boy that he should run too. Eugenio willingly sacrifices himself (he is easily caught by the police), with the clear-cut goal of causing a distraction that facilitates the boy's escape.
A comparison of Adrian's adventures, with those of Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, in STAR WARS, is inevitable. In both films, a likeable protagonist encounters various characters, some devious and shifty, some that are overtly evil, and others that at first appear shifty and immoral but turn out to be faithful and helpful.
The film shifts back and forth from the boy and then to his mother, who works as a part-time maid in L.A. And so, in addition to the boy's continuous stream of adventuresome cliff-hangers, the viewer is provided with a more conventional tear-jerker account of his mother. The mother is miserable for being separated from her 9-year old (however, one might question the mother's instincts, as she has been in L.A. for four entire years. Is life in Mexico that bad, that a mother would abandon her kid for four years?)
The film has a happy ending. The ending is an act of genius, for two reasons. First of all, it ties together a mystery that involves a laundromat, mural, and pizza joint. In this sense, LA MISMA LUNA can be compared to CHINATOWN, with Jack Nicholson, or CITIZEN KANE, with Orson Wells. Both of these movies have the recurring theme of a mysterious clue, that is solved after much delay. The second reason, which occurs during the last few seconds of the film, as that this part of the film could very well be the most understated ending of any movie ever filmed. FIVE STARS.
Description of Under the Same Moon
UNDER THE SAME MOON - DVD MovieUnder the Same Moon puts a human face--several very appealing faces--on the dilemma of Mexican "illegals" living and working clandestinely in the United States and the loved ones back home they're supporting. Rosario, a young single parent, left her village four years ago and jumped the border to find work in Los Angeles; ever since, she and son Carlitos, now nine, haven't seen each other, but she faithfully calls him from the same street-corner pay phone every Sunday morning. When Rosario's mother--the boy's guardian--dies in her sleep, Carlitos taps into an impressive reservoir of street smarts and contrives his own border crossing. The border is just the first of many obstacles to a mother-and-child reunion--not least the fact that the only address the boy has for Rosario is a mental image of the corner she always phones from.
It's easy to take cheap shots at Patricia Riggen's feature-directing debut for tugging at the heartstrings, and certainly Under the Same Moon aspires to nothing like the political and psychological complexity of The Visitor, another film involving illegal immigrants that was released around the same time. But that misses the point, the nature of the mission, and the effectiveness with which Riggen carries it out. Carlitos encounters an almost Dickensian gallery of rogues and menaces, but that's allegorically appropriate for a crossover film (pun unavoidable) aimed at the general U.S. market as well as the Latino circuit. Nor is the movie guilty (as some have charged) of flogging an Anglo-bad/Latino-good poetics; there's opportunism as well as love among Carlitos's neighbors back home, and although Rosario is exploited and cheated by one of the two L.A. households she serves as a maid, the other family appears fond, even solicitous of her.
Riggen's casting is on the money: Kate del Castillo makes a heartbreakingly lovely Rosario, and Adrián Alonso, in addition to giving a gutsy performance as Carlitos, has a marvelous old-man's face the camera never tires of. Veteran actress María Rojo creates a shrewd portrait of a woman who arranges border crossings and observes her own brand of ethics while doing so, and Eugenio Derbez brings raffish charm to a crowd-pleasing role, a guest worker who, though himself two leaps ahead of "La Migra," becomes Carlitos's reluctant protector. America Ferrara (yes, "Ugly Betty") contributes an unflattering cameo as a U.S. college student of Hispanic descent who doesn't understand Spanish. --Richard T. Jameson
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