A Better Life

A Better Life

Directed by Chris Weitz

With Damien Bichir, Jose Julien, and Eddie Sotelo

The deeply compassionate and absorbing film, “A Better Life,” deals with those untold numbers of people who are mostly invisible to us. This simple and understated story is about an illegal Mexican alien, Carlos (Damien Bichir), and his U.S. born 14-year-old son, Luis (Jose Julien), who live in borderline poverty in  the barrios of  East Los Angeles. Luis rejects his Dad’s Mexican ways. These two  males seem worlds apart.

Carlos is a hardworking gardener who spends exhausting hours working to keep the wealthy Los Angeles residents’ yards looking impeccable. He sleeps on the couch of his little apartment so his son Luis can sleep in the bedroom to be rested for school. Luis skips school and aspires to becoming a member of one of the barrio gangs. His father is too exhausted to do anything about it. All Carlos wants to do is to work hard so Luis can get a good education and a better life, but all Luis wants to do is to hang out with his buddies.

Carlos finally gets an opportunity to improve their lives. He borrows money from his sister and is able to buy a truck and equipment so he can have his own landscaping business. Of course, he has no driver’s license, and a simple traffic misstep could lead to his deportation. Carlos has learned to keep his head down and not to draw attention to himself.

Carlos’s happiness at owning his own truck is shattered when his truck is stolen. He can’t report the incident to the police because he is an illegal with no driver’s license. Luis and he set out together to find the stolen vehicle. “A Better Life” then takes the viewer on an odyssey of the streets of East Los Angeles, including its street people, its gangs, political rallies, people waiting for buses, laborers looking for work, and the omnipresent police helicopters flying overhead. The tension mounts as the search continues.

“A Better Life” is two stories. One is the plight of the illegal alien and the other a story of father and son. You can feel Carlos’ powerlessness and anxiety and a sense of what it feels like to be an undocumented alien. Our political rhetoric clouds the plight of these usually hardworking, law-abiding people living on the edge of poverty. 

Luis begins to see that his father is not a wimp, but a strong individual outraged at the theft of his truck who will stop at nothing to retrieve the stolen property. The father and son soon begin to see eye to eye.

“A Better Life” puts a human face on illegal aliens, each of whom has his or her own story to tell. 

Damien Bichir is magnificent in this film. With tiny changes in expression, he projects the fears and anxieties bottled up in his character. You get a feeling of what it must be like to be an illegal, constantly aware of the possibility of being rounded up and deported. These are ordinary people with families, hopes, and dreams who live under the radar. Maybe the next time you look at a busboy, a housekeeper or the person who cuts your grass, you will see them as a whole person.  “A Better Life” will tweak your own compassion and heighten your awareness. And that’s not a bad thing.