Under the Same Moon
July 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

This Mexican film is uplifting and well worth seeing. Though it flirts with the difficult issue of illegal immigration, it is more substantially the poignant story of a separated mother and son and their effort to be reunited in the United States.

The opening scene takes place at night and shows us a group off Mexican immigrants trying to swim to the United States. Their efforts are interrupted by border guards, and in the mêlée that follows Rosario (Kate del Castillo), an attractive young woman, escapes.

Flash forward four years. Rosario has learned her way around Los Angeles and has found positions cleaning house for well-off Americans. One of the women she works for is a bitchy, unappreciative shrew; the other is understanding and kind. Paco (Gabriel Porras) has fallen in love with Rosario and though she does not return his love, she is tempted to marry him so she can bring her son to America.

That son, 11-year-old Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), is in Mexico and living with his grandmother, who passes away. Carlitos makes his mind up to get to America on his own and find his mother. From this point on the two stories, those of mother and son, are skillfully edited and intercut with one another. This is a sweet film, without becoming syrupy, and by the middle we are pretty sure how it is going to end. Yet director Patrica Riggen keeps things lively so that we have a lot of fun, and apprehension, as the movie nears its inevitably happy ending.

Riggen, obviously in favor of more relaxed immigration laws, makes her points about immigration in glancing blows that do not detract from the main story. Rosario’s nasty boss lady dismisses her, not even paying her current wages due, stating that she knows that Rosario is illegal and can do nothing about it. One of the adventures Carlitos has along the road is riding with a group of illegals who are hired to pick tomatoes. In the middle of their work, there is a raid by the authorities. But the biggest way the filmmakers’ point is made is through the music. There are songs like Kinky’s "Superman es Illegal" on the soundtrack, and Riggen even cast Los Tigres del Norte, the immensely popular Mexican-American band now residing in California, as, not surprisingly, a Mexican band driving to a gig. They give Carlitos a ride part of the way, and they just happen to have written a topical song about crossing over as it pertains to immigration.

The colors in this film are brilliant and bright. I haven’t seen so many rich oranges and yellows in a long time. A lot of the color comes from the many vivid murals in the film. In fact, one of the two featurettes provided as extras does tribute to the spray-can artists who created them. The sound is rich, full, focused and mostly up front. It does what it needs to do; both music and dialogue sound just right, though more use of the surrounds might have pulled me into the picture a bit more.

The other featurette is the expected production piece with most of the cast and production team getting to say something about their experience of making the movie. Del Castillo comes off as not only beautiful but gracious, Riggen as wise beyond her years, and Alonso as one of the most precocious and appealing youngsters in film history.

No matter what side of the immigration issue you are on, it can be brushed aside and this movie enjoyed simply as a story of a mother-son relationship that has such deep bonds nothing can scuttle them. No matter how much you try to resist, this powerful movie will move you.

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