PARK CITY – There is a beautiful love story at the center of “I Carry You With Me (Te Llevo Conmigo)” which debuted Sunday at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. It’s not only moving, but it’s remarkably based on the lives of two real-life people. Heidi Ewing, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker for the documentary “Jesus Camp,” makes her narrative debut chronicling this unique story, a tale that could have been a gay romance for the ages. Instead, Ewing makes a creative decision in the final act of the picture which simply sucks all the air out of the room. It’s almost unbelievable how wrong that decision turned out to be and I’m flummoxed to recall any other film that made such a wrong turn.
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“Carry You” begins in the mid-’90s where a young man, Ivan (Armando Espitia) dreams of becoming a sous chef but despite a culinary degree finds few opportunities in Puebla City, Mexico. He has a young son he is trying to care for – he’s estranged from the mother – while barely making enough to survive on his own. What his child’s mother doesn’t know is that Ivan is gay (when he realized this is not part of the story), but his childhood best friend, Sandra (Michelle Rodriguez) is certainly well aware.
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One night the pair head to a new underground gay bar Ivan wants to check out. And after enjoying the secretive decadence of the establishment for a good portion of the evening someone catches Ivan’s eye. It’s one of the moments that only happens in the movies right? But if you live long enough you realize that sometimes true love really does happen with one look across a crowded room. And when Ivan and Gerardo (Christian Vazquez) find each other there is a genuine spark that Ewing manages to magically capture on screen.
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As the months pass Ivan and Gerardo grow closer, but the former decides that the only way for him to fulfill his dream and support his family is to illegally cross the border to America. Gerardo, on the other hand, has a life, a career as a teacher in Puebla City. He simply cannot drop everything to join Ivan on this quest. So, they agree to give it a year. Complicating matters is that Ivan is abandoning a young son he adores. A son he’s unsure he’ll ever see again. Convincing Sandra to join him, the duo embark on a dangerous journey across the border which is hindered by Sandra’s physical limitations (she’s a big girl). After losing their crossing party they have a lucky break that ensures they get into the U.S. without being caught.
Months later life in New York City is difficult. Ivan can’t find that job he’s hoping for and isn’t honest to Gerardo about it either. After being rejected for a travel visa numerous times, Gerardo can’t bare live without seeing Ivan any longer and illegally crosses the border himself. He discovers a tougher situation in NY than he expected, but at least they are together.
Then, Ewing not only flips the script, she flips the entire narrative of the movie. Through a montage, the film jumps to arguably present day in as the real Ivan and Gerardo take over in actual documentary-style footage. They are captured discussing their modern-day battles as illegal immigrants (an admirable storyline) and the fact Ivan’s now grown son still can’t travel to America to see him. Ewing, who has been longtime friends with the two men, no doubt loves them but is somehow unable to realize how different the actors they are to the actors who play them in their younger years. And when she includes photos or videos of the real-life couple from the same time period the “actors” are initially in New York it’s even more jarring.
The experience is like watching two different films. The first portion features incredible performances by Espitia and Vazquez. They exude rapturous on-screen chemistry that makes you want to root for their relationship to last. Juan Pablo Ramírez’s cinematography is simply gorgeous. Jay Wadley’s score is genuinely moving. Roxana Lojero’s set decoration, Sandra Cabriada’s production design and Brenda Gomez’s costumes are authentic to the era without descending into obvious clichés. As a viewer, I wanted to see the ending to the film those artists were making. The other “film” it ends with? It’s simply not compelling at all. [B-]
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