Beautifully handled, and just plain beautiful, Heidi Ewing makes a smooth transition from documentaries to narrative film charting the real-life relationship of two illegal Mexican immigrants, a gay couple now successful New York restauranteurs, and the hell they went thru to get here, neatly laid out in clear non-linear fashion. Covering about twenty years, excluding brief childhood flashbacks, one of the men is leaving a young son behind to find work in the States, the other, with his own family issues, will follow after waiting over a year. Nothing in their difficulties will come as a surprise (either on the sexual front, crossing the border or in finding themselves Stateless in America), but Ewing makes nothing but right moves editing their story, casting for various ages (the men play themselves in the present day sections), and in finding just the spot to make her compositions come alive. She’s even better in her use of color. (Also quite the thing for Manhattan bridges; one snowy shot with the Brooklyn Bridge outlined behind a real keeper.) Don’t let the familiarity of the story arc get in the way, it doesn’t for Ewing who finds fresh, raw, true emotion in every moment and between some refreshing relationships, even the old one between the nice gay guy and his chubby gal pal. Nothing in here feels cliché.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Elia Kazan brought some of the same passion & longings to his own family history in AMERICA AMERICA/’63. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/12/america-america-1963.html
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