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A Better Life

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A Better Life is a movie directed by Chris Weitz illustrating the life of an illegal immigrant from Mexico and his son and a few of the struggles they face. Weitz has made it clear that this film is not to push any kind of political agenda as he says, “I hoped that when people go and see this film, they think it's not a tub-thumping movie.” He has stated that he wanted to make this movie to connect more with his heritage and to highlight a few struggles that immigrants have to face in America today. The film shows what is familiar to me in a few ways because like Luis, I find it hard to relate to my culture. My parents came over to America with nothing, trying to escape a war-torn country still recovering and adapting to a new government. Carlos to me represents a parallel to my parents and Luis is a parallel to me and my brother. I'm the kid that never bothered to really learn Vietnamese as a child. I feel that Luis is the same as me. We are both 'Americanized' and felt no need to learn or remember our cultures until some event or thought opens our eyes to it. In the movie, “Luis sees the culture of his father's part of Mexico.” when Luis says he does not remember his mom singing the song from the rodeo as his dad says she did. It hit home with how Luis did not remember his father singing him songs to put him to sleep as a child because it …show more content…
He worked on book adaptations to screen with The Golden Compass and New Moon, making A Better Life something new in his work. His change in movie styles can contributed to Weitz saying, "he wanted to direct A Better Life because he wanted to get in touch with heritage." Weitz wanting to connect to his heritage is understandable because it seems only natural, to me at least, to seek and learn about a part of you that you probably did not care enough to understand when you are

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