Under the Same Moon tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) and his mother, Rosario (Kate del Castillo). In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario left Carlitos with his grandmother four years ago and now works illegally in the United States. Carlitos’ heart aches for his mother and despite her calls home each Saturday morning, he cannot help but feel as if she’s abandoned him. When his grandmother dies in her sleep, Carlitos decides to make the dangerous border crossing and join his mother in Los Angeles.

Unaware of her son’s plight, Rosario is facing problems of her own. Fired as a house cleaner by a vindictive (and highly caricatured) white landlord, and questioning her reasons for leaving her son behind in the first place, Rosario weighs returning to a life of poverty in Mexico or marrying a friend she does not love (Gabriel Porras) in order to stay in the U.S. legally.

Meanwhile, with money he had saved up, Carlitos pays a Mexican-American sister and brother (Ugly Betty’s America Ferrera and Jesse Garcia) to smuggle him across the border in their minivan. Thus begins a series of ever escalating, ever more implausible incidents that find Carlitos in the grip of the U.S. Border Patrol, facing down a drug addict, nearly sold into sexual slavery, picking vegetables with migrant workers, tracking down the father he has never met, and walking a city the size of Los Angles until he just happens to bump into the one person out of nearly 10 million he’s trying to find.

Under the Same Moon is undeniably heartwarming at times. It’s also undeniably maudlin, far-fetched and heavy-handed. I was reminded of all melodramatic reasons why I disliked last year’s somewhat similarly themed Trade. While Under the Same Moon is a far better looking film, it too suffers from the same sort of episodic improbability.

Director Patricia Riggen incorporates what she must assume to be a subtle commentary on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. Instead, her remarks play as long-winded, vitriolic rants. Not trusting enough in her own story to let it convey her politics, she has to spell them out time and again until, whether you agree with her or not, you feel like shouting back at the screen, “Enough already!”

What miraculously saves Under the Same Moon from being a total failure is its strong, emotionally sincere performances. The adorable Adrian Alonso has the same sort of reach-out-and-hug-him persona as Salvatore Cascio did in the Academy Award-winning Cinema Paradiso. The beautiful Kate del Castillo is completely believable as a woman torn between duty to her son and desire to be with him. And Eugenio Derbez as Enrique, a sort of belligerent guardian angel/surrogate father Carlitos picks up along the way, brings a rough-around-the-edges grace that the film sorely lacked.

Under the Same Moon is a bit too precious, a bit too convenient and a bit too implausible. With all that stacked against it, it’s a wonder it works at all.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.