Quinceañera: Echo Park

I think this movie will have universal appeal. This story of family learning to accept each other, along with coming of age, and changing urban centers will resonate with people around the country no matter whether they know what a quinceñera is or not.

The cast is mostly non-union, and the performances they give are brave and fresh. Three cheers for Emily Rios and Jesse Garcia, who played the leads, and cousins, who are struggling with acceptance from their parents, and take shelter with their elderly great-uncle.

I also saw this at Sundance, and the film got a standing ovation. I was surprised it took both the Grand Jury and Audience Awards, but not surprised it resonated on such a fundamental level with the cast.

Directors Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer said they began writing the story on New Year's Day of 2005, and the entire thing came together fast - 3 weeks for financing, another three to film on their very own street of Echo Park.

I think it's specific enough to interest people, and universal enough to keep them watching.

A slice of life from a very recognizable other planet. The Echo Park section of Los Angeles. It could be so many other places and at the same time it couldn't be anywhere else. New life and death co-mingling in almost perfect harmony. Love coming out of the most unexpected quarters, heroic gestures, prejudice and solitude. There is much to commend in this tiny tale with major implications. Two directors with a compassionate look and real affection. For me, personally, meant the introduction to a major talent: Jesse Garcia. He plays a character that seems to walk a permanent tight rope and yet he is so completely himself that you can't take your eyes of the guy because you know for certain he is going to surprise you in the best possible way. Excellent.

"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today." Isaac Asimov

There isn't much more that could happen to a 14 year-old Latino girl than occurs in Quincearnera, a stew simmered in the Echo-Park section of Los Angeles.Change is the dominant motif as it affects every major and sub-plot point to the point that nothing is explored in depth while much happens.

Before the celebration of her Quincearnera (15th birthday, when a girl becomes a woman, Magdalena (Emily Rios) is pregnant although the circumstances are questionable if not downright miraculous; bad boy brother Carlos (Jesse Garcia) is gay; they and their old uncle Tomas (Chalo Gonzalez), who has kindly sheltered the two after they are shunned by the family, face eviction as the area is going to gentrification faster than you can say the film's title. The change also visits her dad, who struggles to accept his shameful daughter despite the cultural negativity.

Directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland drive their camera through and around the streets of Echo Park and the yards and living rooms to fulfill the promise of the production company, Kitchen Sink. The kitchen-sink movement in the 50's and 60's especially in England showed basic working class family life, such as Mike Leigh currently does, and still allowed the old higher-class staples of irony, tragedy, and comedy take their rightful place. In Quincearnera, however, the topics are subsumed under the change idiom, allowing the directors to use the gays-smartly-investing-in real-estate motif without much to say other than rents become very high.

Although Magdalena's pregnancy seems to be the center of the tale, the film also touches on the changing fortunes of minorities, the emergence of gays as both owners and landlords, the challenges of adolescence, and the power of family. For those subjects, I applaud these directors.

In Echo Park, Los Angeles, the teenager Eileen May Garcia (Alicia Sixtos) has a dream fifteen years old party. Her cousin Magdalena (Emily Rios) is fourteen years old and will be the next in the family to celebrate the "Quinceañera". However, her father is the local preacher and security guard and cannot afford and expensive party and Magdalena will wear her cousin's dress and dreams on arriving in a limousine like Eileen did. However, her dreams are shattered when she finds that she is pregnant of her boyfriend Herman (J.R. Cruz), in spite of being virgin. Her father expels her from her home and she moves to the house of her uncle Tomas Alvarez (Chalo González), who lodges his troublemaker gay nephew Carlos (Jesse Garcia) in his house, and the trio raises family bonds.

"Quinceañera" is the evidence that it is possible to make a great movie with a very low-budget, supported by excellent screenplay and performance. The enlightened character Tomas that survives selling "champarraro" is one of the most beautiful I have recently seen. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Meus Quinze Anos" ("My Fifteen Years")

Although it wasn't a first pick, I was able to get the time slot I wanted at Sundance to view this film. We were so impressed with the film that it was almost a post viewing panic session that we could have missed a film this awesome just because it didn't have any "big names" in it. Jesse Garcia is the next "big name" in Hollywood! Keep your eyes on this guy. His portrayal of a gay Hispanic gang member just blows all stereo types out of the water. Chalo González is a national treasure, and outshines the entire cast as Uncle Thomas. Emily Rios is also a great find, and really does a great job in her first big role. Listening to the writers/directors in person detailing their own experience of moving to Echo Park California, and witnessing the gentrification of the area which inspired the film, made this screening even more sweet. The only flaw that I could find was that I wanted to see more of Magdalena's family, and thought those relationships could have been fleshed out more to better understand why they did the things to her that they did. The entire cast was so approachable after the screening and Q&A, that it made me want to go out and do all their PR work for free! Glatzer and Westmoreland said to look for this film on HBO, so hopefully that will be the case really soon for the general public. Catch it if you can; it's worth the time.