Some situations may be too tied to contemporary reality to receive a fairy-tale touch. It’s fair to say the illegal immigrant experience is one of them. Under the Same Moon follows 9-year-old Carlos (Adrian Alonso) as he journeys from his native Mexico to track down his mother (Kate del Castillo) in Los Angeles, where she has worked for four years hoping to save up enough money to reunite them. The story and mood is pure fantasy, yet the details are often grimly realistic. Screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos and director Patricia Riggen are never able to bridge that gap, especially in a brief sequence in which little Carlos is almost swallowed up by the Mexican-U.S. sex trade.
