This competent but somewhat predictable drama, which strobes between settings in Mexico and Texas, emerged two years ago under the title The Absence of Eden to very little fanfare or even much notice beyond the festival circuit. It’s almost certainly getting a release now here in the UK because its lead, Zoe Saldaña, is up for an Academy Award for Emilia Pérez in which, like this one, she plays a Mexican woman.
Here Saldaña is a strip club employee named Esmee on the run to El Norte after she kills a client, so this at least shows off her range a bit. As it happens, this was also directed and co-written by Saldaña’s real-life husband, Italian film-maker Marco Perego, who certainly ensures the missus is beautifully lit in every shot and gets a big climactic emotional speech near the end. Not that it’s possible to take a bad shot of Saldaña, even when she’s wearing drab normie clothes and barely a lick of makeup.
