Under the Same Moon

A film that moves between Mexico and America. Rosario crossed the border four years ago. She cleans houses in Los Angeles and sends what she earns to Mexico. Her son stayed with his grandmother. Carlitos is nine. He talks to his mother every Sunday on the phone; the same hour, the same public box. When the grandmother dies the boy is alone. He sets off without telling anyone. From there the film is a journey. He pays to be taken across, is caught, runs, takes a bus, and meets different people on the way: a couple, a group of workers, a lorry driver and a man. What the narrative is interested in is not politics but distance: it shows the border not as a subject of argument but as the road between a child and his mother. The side line is the mother. Rosario receives a proposal of marriage, and it is a solution on paper; whether she will accept is the second tension. The tone is emotional and open; the film does not try to make things hard for the viewer. Adrian Alonso plays Carlitos and Kate del Castillo plays Rosario. Eugenio Derbez and America Ferrera are in the cast. Patricia Riggen directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes migration stories and family drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting hard realism; the narrative leans on coincidence and its ending is far too neat.