Under The Same Moon: Nothing New Under This Moon
I really don’t understand my fellow critics sometimes. You could have two movies that are exactly alike except for one or two details and they can love one and hate the other. La Misma Luna (known in the US as Under the Same Moon), is an example of just that. It resembles August Rush almost to the letter. Colleagues hated August Rush but enjoyed this movie, and for the exact same reasons they hated the former. I personally loved August Rush and can’t recommend it to enough people, and yet I completely hate this movie. The reason is simple, for it’s preposterousness, it doesn’t have the one thing the former movie had; magic.
This movie is about a 9-year-old boy named Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) who lives with his grandmother in Mexico. His mother (Kate del Castillo) has been living in Los Angeles illegally for the last four years trying to get enough money to bring her son over. When his grandmother dies, he decides to brave a journey across the border to find his mother, using the little information that he know about her whereabouts to guide his way. He uses an American college student (America Ferrera) to get him across. From there, he hitches a ride with other illegals such as himself, including a scruffy, grumpy drifter name Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), who becomes his companion in his journey (much to his displeasure).
There are so many problems with this movie, I don’t know where to start. This movie oozes with melodramatic cheesiness that just pops up out of nowhere. It’s characters are prodded into situations that seem tailored to the story without allowing them to make decisions. It isn’t enough that Carlitos wants to be back with his mother after his grandmother dies. No, we have to have an exploitive uncle who would do our protagonist harm if he stays. Outside of four characters in the movie, all others are expendable and do not have any real context. And then it overplays the plights of illegal immigrants in America in a feel-good liberal way that doesn’t really help the story except to make the filmmaker and the audience feel like they’re seeing how hard it is to be in their shoes. These broad strokes undermine any chance of understanding since they’re again played through a fantasy of a boy trying to get to his mother.
August Rush was also a movie about a young boy on a quest, but it allowed for context on all of it’s characters, especially in it’s minor parts. It was also very melodramatic, but used it not at the expense of real drama. And the performances in August Rush were much better. Adrian Alonso plays everything too openly to believe he is capable of any strength. His crying scenes are too fake to believe in anything he’s saying. In fact, most of the performances are way too stiff to believe in the drama of the show. Only Eugenio Derbez is worthy of discussion. If there was anything to say good about this movie, it’s Derbez’s diamond in this pit of Hell. He reminded me of Toshiro Mifune’s scruffy outsider in Seven Samurai who had a chip on his shoulder, but was capable of humanity. Even without any scenes to show any history, his performance is so good that he still conveys a history of sadness and anger. I will be keeping a lookout for other movies he makes.
I think that most critics give independent and smaller movies a pass over Hollywood products in a way that they might feel they are leveling the playing field. While I will agree that independent movies have the means of creating genius by not having to conform to the studio’s will, I don’t agree that independent movies should be given any leniency when it comes to overplaying their hand. There is nothing memorable about this picture that prefers to lecture than entertain. And it doesn’t even lecture that well, either.
All in all, I cannot give this movie a recommendation. In fact, this might be one of the worst movies this year if you take into account what it’s trying to do, what it has done, and what it wants us to think of it. I hate being played by a talentless amateur. Recently, Mexico and the rest of Latin America has had a reawakening of great movies like Babel, City of God, and Pan’s Labyrinth. I want to be played by someone who will show me a good time.
Grade: D
This movie is about a 9-year-old boy named Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) who lives with his grandmother in Mexico. His mother (Kate del Castillo) has been living in Los Angeles illegally for the last four years trying to get enough money to bring her son over. When his grandmother dies, he decides to brave a journey across the border to find his mother, using the little information that he know about her whereabouts to guide his way. He uses an American college student (America Ferrera) to get him across. From there, he hitches a ride with other illegals such as himself, including a scruffy, grumpy drifter name Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), who becomes his companion in his journey (much to his displeasure).
There are so many problems with this movie, I don’t know where to start. This movie oozes with melodramatic cheesiness that just pops up out of nowhere. It’s characters are prodded into situations that seem tailored to the story without allowing them to make decisions. It isn’t enough that Carlitos wants to be back with his mother after his grandmother dies. No, we have to have an exploitive uncle who would do our protagonist harm if he stays. Outside of four characters in the movie, all others are expendable and do not have any real context. And then it overplays the plights of illegal immigrants in America in a feel-good liberal way that doesn’t really help the story except to make the filmmaker and the audience feel like they’re seeing how hard it is to be in their shoes. These broad strokes undermine any chance of understanding since they’re again played through a fantasy of a boy trying to get to his mother.
August Rush was also a movie about a young boy on a quest, but it allowed for context on all of it’s characters, especially in it’s minor parts. It was also very melodramatic, but used it not at the expense of real drama. And the performances in August Rush were much better. Adrian Alonso plays everything too openly to believe he is capable of any strength. His crying scenes are too fake to believe in anything he’s saying. In fact, most of the performances are way too stiff to believe in the drama of the show. Only Eugenio Derbez is worthy of discussion. If there was anything to say good about this movie, it’s Derbez’s diamond in this pit of Hell. He reminded me of Toshiro Mifune’s scruffy outsider in Seven Samurai who had a chip on his shoulder, but was capable of humanity. Even without any scenes to show any history, his performance is so good that he still conveys a history of sadness and anger. I will be keeping a lookout for other movies he makes.
I think that most critics give independent and smaller movies a pass over Hollywood products in a way that they might feel they are leveling the playing field. While I will agree that independent movies have the means of creating genius by not having to conform to the studio’s will, I don’t agree that independent movies should be given any leniency when it comes to overplaying their hand. There is nothing memorable about this picture that prefers to lecture than entertain. And it doesn’t even lecture that well, either.
All in all, I cannot give this movie a recommendation. In fact, this might be one of the worst movies this year if you take into account what it’s trying to do, what it has done, and what it wants us to think of it. I hate being played by a talentless amateur. Recently, Mexico and the rest of Latin America has had a reawakening of great movies like Babel, City of God, and Pan’s Labyrinth. I want to be played by someone who will show me a good time.
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