Retro IONCINEMA.com
Sundance Journal 2009 Day 7: Cruz Angeles’ Don’t Let Me Drown
When Hollywood and indie film started tackling 9/11, for the most part, these films’ integrated characters into a story-line, you get a sense that it is the other way around with Cruz Angeles’ drama/coming-of-age portrait where the characters have a backstory and where the backdrop and the aftermath are found in daily reminders by a thoughtless comment or an overhead plane appearing to be too close to the ground.
When Hollywood and indie film started tackling 9/11, for the most part, these films’ integrated characters into a story-line, you get a sense that it is the other way around with Cruz Angeles‘ drama/coming-of-age portrait where the characters have a backstory and where the backdrop and the aftermath are found in daily reminders by a thoughtless comment or an overhead plane appearing to be too close to the ground.
Angeles was on hand with his leads, other cast, his co-writer wife and his producing team of Parts and Labor.
There were some primary and secondary characters in the mix that I found didn’t fit the part (EJ Bonilla does a fine job (above) but Gleendilys Inoa‘s inexperience (below) does show, and Don’t Let Me Drown works best when investigating the impact of the horrible day in September on the American Latino but works less when approaching the territory that was addressed in a film like Raising Victor Vargas (young adult romance).
