Even in the summertime a small independent film with no well known actors and a complete lack of special effects can sneak into theaters, cross your radar, and floor you. A Better Life is one of those movies. It’s not a perfect film but it’s one of the best two or three movies I’ve seen this summer and that’s more than worth your money in this current wasteland. For as long as critics bitch about how cruddy the summer movie season is, they should also find just as much room to find movies that are doing their job right, and this film (about an illegal immigrant, hardworking dad trying to keep his teenage son out from under the spell of recruiting gangs) is one of them.
What Works: The plot is something we rarely see, and the quasi-Bronx Tale theme of dueling father figures for the spirit of a teenage son really works. The central conflict hovering over the sullen, angry son is to be a good man like his dad and work yourself to death for a bare-means living while people take advantage of you or the easy money and feared respect of the gangs, and it’s a good one. Also the lead actor Demian Bichir is flat-out terrific. He takes the role of an illegal immigrant gardener/day laborer you would easily ignore and makes him unforgettable. With quiet dignity fraying at the ends, his dad finds out just how hard it is to remain an honest, decent man. And the ending…well I think at least half the audience was crying, plus there’s a terrific last line.
What Doesn’t Work: The pacing is a little pokey, but it’s clear at the end that the director (the shape-shifting Chris Weitz who directed American Pie, yes, American Pie, About a Boy, the 2nd Twilight movie, and A Golden Compass before this) has just been softening us for the kill.
What I Would Have Done Differently: It’s hard to say without really giving away the surprises towards the end of this movie, but there’s a subplot that takes up much of the last half of the movie that feels like it takes us away from the central conflict at the heart of the movie. It comes back to it at the end but I think an entire movie that is centered like a Latin Bronx Tale would really work down the road.
As usual this movie has not come to my town, yet. I can’t wait to see it. Great article.
I also like some of the ads that you have on your site. I have never seen or heard of some of them. Thanks