A Better Life (2011)

Director: Chris Weitz

Writer: Eric Eason

Story by: Roger L. Simon

Actors: Demian Bichir: José Julián; Dolores Heredia; Carlos Linares; Bobby Soto

Cinematography: Javier Aguirresarobe

Music: Alexandre Desplat

Running time: 94 mins.

Rated: PG-13

L.A. and the immigrant

           America is a land of immigrants. All of us are, or are descended from, people who came here seeking a better life. Even the original Americans came here crossing the Bering Strait in search of game that was becoming scarce in the Old World of Asia. A better life is a human right. It drives us all, though we may call it by different names.

Today immigration is a politically charged term that has the tendency to polarize and alienate--- even infuriate. This movie puts a human face on the controversy and makes no political statements; it just gives a view of one man’s determination to better himself and ensure a better future for his son.

             Carlos Galindo (Demian Bichir) is an undocumented Mexican immigrant who came to Los Angeles with his wife fifteen years ago to escape the poverty and lack of opportunity in his homeland. He works as a gardener and has trouble making enough to support his teenage son Luis (José Julián); his wife, we learn later in the film, deserted them when their son was an infant. The relationship between Carlos and Luis is strained. Carlos lives only for his son; he even sleeps on the couch so that Luis can have the only bedroom in their small rented house. But Luis is ashamed of his father, and is being pressured to join a local gang. Carlos needs a truck so that he can work independently and develop his own business. The opportunity comes along when his boss Blasco (Joaquín Cosio) decides to give up the business and return to Mexico. Carlos gets a loan from his sister Anita (Delores Heredia) and buys his boss’s truck and gardening tools; but on his first day as an independent contractor his dayworker assistant Santiago (Carlos Linares) steals the truck, shattering Carlos’s hopes for a better future. 

                 The rest of the movie deals with Carlos and Luis traveling around Los Angeles in search of the stolen truck. The journey they take bonds the father and son, but ultimately leads sadly to their unwanted separation. 

                A Better Life is a realistic portrayal of Latino immigrant life in Los Angeles--- the best and the worst of it. It loosely resembles the storyline of the post-war neorealist Italian film The Bicycle Thief (1948). Locations are spread out across the county: East L.A., Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and South Central. The Chicano street dialect is spot on authentic--- no clichés here, this is the real thing. Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries (one of L.A.’s living saints) was a consultant on the language and culture.

                  This movie, as I said, is not a political or social statement; it’s a character study, and the characters of both Carlos and Luis are beautifully presented by Demian Bichir and José Julián. Bichir was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance  and Julián for a Spirit Award. Bichir’s facial expressions say more in a second than a multi-worded sentence--- hurt, joy, wonder, and anger: all expressed simply in the blinking of an eye and the tightening of the lips. 

                   Two scenes in particular really stand out and show the humanity of the man. In one, Carlos, on his first day of work as a new entrepreneur with his new truck, climbs a palm tree to trim it. From the height he looks out at the view and admires the city spread out before him--- his city. He’s on top of the world and he’s made it, there’s hope. But in a second as he looks down he sees his keys are missing and Santiago is driving away in his truck--- it’s all gone. He chases the truck until he’s exhausted. 

                   The other takes place in the detention center just before he’s about to be sent back to Mexico. On their journey to find the stolen truck the father and son had stopped at a Charro rodeo in East L.A. There Luis asked his father why he had had him, but Carlos could not express it at that time, and the question went unanswered. At their last meeting he gives Luis the moving answer--- an answer the boy needed to here.

                    A Better Life is just one story of one man’s dream to carve out a future and help build a nation in the process; there have been millions before him, and there will be millions in the years to come--- this is an immigrant’s tale.