Long Gone By

Director Andrew Morgan presents a solemn picture of the current ugly face the United States has turned toward the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. As we drift away from our humanity, and closer to becoming a place you’d run from instead of to, small, intimate stories tell the tale better than the nightly news. 

Images of ICE officers driving over a line of protesters, or children on filthy floors in a detention center, serve as heart-wrenching damnation of who we are. But these are only the dramatic advertising dollar, sound-bite moments. Out in the flyover states, every day, someone like Ana Alvarez agonizes about what will become of her family, when she’s sent back to a place she may not survive. An interesting juxtaposition for us is that Ana’s hell on earth is our bucolic rural Indiana, a place of quiet fields and DQ ice cream, of little pink houses, as peacefully American as can be. 

“… a solemn picture of the current ugly face the United States…”

The tale is told in the muted desperation Ana feels…she says “yes sir” and “no ma’am” to every white person she thinks could help Izzy, disregarding her own dignity. Izzy gets her share of white America too: when her new love interest boy from school realizes the reason she looks familiar is that he’s seen her cleaning his house, suddenly his interest in the lovely, dark-haired girl turns to shame and disgust. 

Shame and disgust are two emotions we should all settle in with unless we can find a way to turn back the current wave of xenophobic rejection of immigrants in America. We all are immigrants. Andrew Morgan and his talented cast may help you reclaim some part of your soul in this film.