Review: Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna)

“If love has no borders, why do humans have borders?” - Adrian Alonso, 14 years old.

Wise words from the young star of Under the Same Moon, new on DVD this week. La Misma Luna tells the story of nine-year-old Carlitos, whose father he’s never met, and whose mother is struggling as an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles, trying to forge a place for herself in America so she can bring her beloved son over the border to be with her. It’s been four years, and the progress is painfully slow.

Carlitos lives with his grandmother in Mexico, calling his mother Rosario (Kate Del Castillo) on a pay-phone every Sunday morning. He also works as an assistant to Dona Carmen (Carmen Salinas) and her ‘coyote’ operation of smuggling people across the border into the United States for a fee, although he has no luck in convincing her to smuggle him across, as his mother forbade it for being too dangerous.

Things change, however, when Carlitos’ beloved grandmother dies, leaving him no one to take care of him, and no further ties. So the smart boy figures out how to go around Dona Carmen and get a green pseudo-gringo named Martha (America Ferrera) to make the attempt to get him to LA, knowing he’s got a week to get there before the next phone call with his mother would reveal that he’s gone.

The resulting journey is an arduous one for the young boy, fraught with threats of suffocation, border patrols, INS raids and an unlikely companion named Enrique (Eugenio Derbez) who wants nothing to do with him. But Carlitos always keeps his wits about him, and he’s a lot more clever than his years would suggest. The trouble is that Rosario herself is planning to return to Mexico to be with her little boy just as that boy is making the trek to be with her. With no means of communication, these two ships threaten to pass in the night with potentially devastating consequences.

It’s a really touching and heartfelt story with an ending so perfectly sweet that you can’t help but feel moved. Del Castillo’s eyes burn with her longing to be with her son and the frustration of her struggle in America. Alonso is adorable and earnest as the whip-smart kid who could have just been annoyingly precocious if played poorly. Derbez is amusing as the surly loner who eventually realizes that some things are more important than what he wants for himself. Having seen her star-making turn in Real Women Have Curves, it’s also funny to see Ferrera in the role of a clueless and nervous Mexican-American girl who can’t speak the language, yet tries to get work as a coyote to earn money for tuition.

It’s definitely worth seeing, to put faces and feelings to the issues that talk-radio pundits constantly opine about loudly and impersonally. It always comes back to John Lennon. “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do.”

- By Andy Hunsaker, Fancast Movies

Watch the trailer for Under The Same Moon (La Misma Luna).

Under The Same Moon clips:
Rosario’s maid work is not easy.
Martha (America Ferrera) tries to offer her services to help smuggle children across the border.
Panic at the border when Martha tries to sneak Carlitos to the US to be with his mother.