Review: A Better Life

Chris Weitz’ A Better Life is painted in the simple, broad strokes of a children’s picture book. It is full of conflict but absent nuance, the tell-tale sign of a movie that would rather tell its audience how to feel than allow them to make their own decisions. That’s fine when said audience is made up of four-year-olds and the objective is teaching manners, but it is downright patronizing when they are adults and the subject is illegal immigration. While the simple stakes of its premise–a better life in the United States vs. a worse life in Mexico–are admittedly conducive to some captivating second-act cat-and-mouse suspense, the movie is an utter failure as both a polemic and a character study.

Demián Bichir, whose last notable credit was another leftist lecture (Che), stars as Carlos Galindo, the poster-child for amnesty. He is a proud single father who works tirelessly as a gardener to provide for his teenage son Luis (José Julián). We know Carlos is a good guy from the beginning of the movie, you see, because he lets Luis take the bedroom of their tiny East L.A. bungalow, while he sleeps on the couch. That’s about as complex as the character development gets. Like we’ve seen in a dozen other movies on this topic, Carlos lives with the constant threat of deportation, even though he, like, totally doesn’t deserve it.

Some may argue that A Better Life is not a political film because it does not overtly take a stand on the issue of illegal immigration (unlike 2008’s Under the Same Moon), but this ignores the political implications of its choice of Carlos as the symbol of an illegal immigrant. He is heroized as the model citizen who could contribute so much to the character of the United States if only he was provided an expedient path to citizenship — the weakest red herring argument for amnesty in the book, rivaling the “We need brown people to mow our lawns!”-rhetoric of 2004’s A Day Without a Mexican. The only problem associated with illegal immigration that director Weitz and writer Eric Eason touch upon is the epidemic of gang violence among poor Hispanic youths, but even so, their depiction of an East L.A. thug is akin to your spooky, tattooed cousin.

However, there have been movies that have taken the same inadequately argued political position and still been compelling character studies, the aforementioned Under the Same Moon chief among them. Unfortunately,  the puerile script and the mediocre performances of A Better Life effectively bar this. While Bichir is solid in the lead–his commanding presence makes up for the occasional pouty-faced moment–the rest of the cast is atrocious, recalling 2008’s similarly-themed Frozen River, in which Melissa Leo outacted her co-stars in spades. José Julián’s depiction of Luis’ inner-conflict–whether to heed the positive lessons of his father or to conform to the young gangster ideal of his community–is particularly amateurish and even laughable, but then again, the script is likely just as responsible for this as the performance.

What keeps the movie afloat is its entertaining middle passage, in which Carlos must track a fellow immigrant who robs him of a truck and gardening supplies he purchased on borrowed cash. (He obviously can’t report them stolen to the police due to his illegal status.) The extended manhunt required to get them back, which pairs he and Luis as a detective team, makes for a strong (if conventional) white-knuckle thriller. This is somewhat surprising in that it works despite the fact that we don’t really care for the characters. But when you realize that straightforward action is actually more comfortable territory for Weitz, whose last two films were Twilight: New Moon and The Golden Compass, the passage’s effectiveness makes sense. Unfortunately, it can hardly make up for the essence of the movie, which is as wrongheaded and simpleton as they come.

* * *

A Better Life (2011, USA). Produced by Jami Gertz, Laura Greenlee, Paul Junger Witt, Stacey Lubliner, and Christian McLaughlin. Directed by Chris Weitz. Written for the screen by Eric Eason. Story by Roger L. Simon. Starring Demián Bichir, José Julián, Joaquín Cosio, Nancy Lenehan, Gabriel Chavarria, Bobby Soto, Chelsea Rendon, and Trampas Thompson. Distributed by Summit Entertainment. Rated PG-13, with a running time of 98 minutes.