To make the story short “Under the Same Moon” (“La Misma Luna”) is a powerful and evocative account of the efforts undertaken by a young single mother and her son trying to reunite after four years of separation. It’s about love, emotion rather than immigration and politics.

Starring Kate del Castillo, a 35-year-old Mexican-born actress best known for her work in telenovelas as the beautiful and strong-willed mother (Rosario) and young Adrian Alonso, recognizable as the masked man’s son in “The Legend of Zorro” as the 9-year-old Carlitos, the movie has done a great job of casting its key characters.

Directed by Mexican film director Patricia Riggen, “Under the Same Moon” wants to touch people’s hearts and not just a few, she wants to reach everyone.

“Our cinema lately hasn’t really connected with Mexicans. I think (Mexican) films are being made by a small group of people for a small group of people, and I want to make films for the rest of us,” she told the San Diego Union Tribune.

The movie, written by Mexican Lighia Villalobos, opens this Wednesday on 600 screens in the United States and 350 in Mexico and tells the story of Rosario, a single mother who immigrates illegally in the United States and holds several jobs in order to take care of Carlitos, her son. Immigration is a theme of “Under the Same Moon,” though saying that makes the movie sound dryly political. By turns funny, gripping and moving, the film is anything but that. Besides immigration, the movie also exposes the separation of families, a universal theme. It is the sad story of countless Mexican families, leaving their children behind and sneaking across the border to find jobs that pay small fortunes compared with what they make at home.

The-9-year-old boy feels abandoned being left home with his grandmother, who is taking care of him. The only connection with his mother is a Sunday morning phone call that has taken on the sanctity of a religious ritual. He is waiting for his mom to save up enough money to get her legal status changed and Carlitos sent to her.

When his grandmother dies in her sleep, the love-hungry child sets out on a precarious journey to find his mom hundreds of miles away in another country, although he possesses just a mailing address and a vague notion of where she calls him every week from a pay phone. He hires a couple (Jesse Garcia and Ugly Betty's America Ferrera) to smuggle him across the border so that he can reunite with his mother.

After a few twists, some more believable than others, Carlitos winds up in the not-very-enthusiastic care of Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), himself in the U.S. illegally. At this point, “Under the Same Moon” becomes a buddy movie; a charming one, at that.

Meanwhile, Rosario - unaware that Carlitos is on the road, searching for her - has troubles of her own. Fired by a shrewish employer on a cruel whim, she considers marrying to stay in the country legally.

Does Cralitos eventually reach his mom? Let’s just say you may be absolutely shocked at how moved you are when finally, Carlitos’ journey come to a joyful end.

Though “Under the Same Moon” is mainly in Spanish, distributors Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Co. hope it will become one of the rare foreign-languages films that also strikes a nerve with the broader English-language audiences, as did Italy’s “Cinema Paradiso,” China’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or France’s Amelie. In fact, Riggen herself think it will be better received in the U.S., “because it deals with a very important subject for everyone, the Latino community as much as the Americans. I think it’s more relevant over here.”

“Under the Same Moon” has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival and at the Miami and San Diego Latino film festivals until now and it has been well received.

“It was a little independent movie (a binationally financed project costing less than $2 million to make) and it's turned into a big Hollywood movie,” the director said.

Opens on Wednesday nationwide

Rated PG-13 (for some mature thematic elements)

 

Directed by: Patricia Riggen

Written by: Ligiah Villalobos

Director of Photography: Checco Varese

Edited by: Aleshka Ferrero

Music by” Carlo Siliotto

Production designers: Gloria carrasco, Carmen Gimenez Cacho

Produced by: Ms. Riggen and Gerardo Barrera

Released by: Fox Searchlight Pictures and the Weinstein Company

Running time: 1 hour and 49 minutes
 

Starring: Adrian Alonso (Carlitos), Kate del Castillo (Rosario), Eugenio Derbez (Enrique), Maya Zapata (Alicia), Carmen Salinas (Dona Carmen), Maria Rojo (Reyna), Mario Almada (Padrino), Jesse Garcia (David) and America Ferrera (Martha)