Rent Alambrista! (1977)

Rough Round the Edges, Better For It - Alambrista! review by griggs

Watched this expecting a worthy, eat-your-vegetables kind of film and got something that actually grabbed me.

Domingo Ambriz plays Roberto, a farmer who crosses into California to send money home, and he carries the whole thing. I'm surprised he never landed another lead, because he kept working for years after this, mostly stuck in the background playing gang members and immigrants — this feels like the one time someone actually gave him the whole frame. There's a Sean Baker energy here decades early: an interest in people scraping by, and a refusal to smooth over the rough edges.

The middle stretch, all fruit-picking, dodging immigration checks and odd bits of kindness from strangers, is where the film lives. It's low-key and observational, but gripping with it.

Technically it's rough round the edges, the budget shows now and then, and a few of the supporting cast can't quite match Ambriz. Still, this is an underdog story that skips the tidy redemption arc, and it's better for it.

Didn't need a happy ending to land. It just needed to feel true, and it does.