Second family: Jesse Garcia and Emily Rios
10 April 2012
A Prize-winner at the Sundance Festival, Echo Park LA is about a Mexican girl (Emily Rios) who falls pregnant before her fifteenth birthday.
Banished by her religious father, she moves with her gay best friend (Jesse Garcia) to her great uncle's. He's a fount of wisdom who forms them into a second family.
Meanwhile, the gentrification of Echo Park proceeds apace and they are likely to be thrown out of their home.
The film is made by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, whose palpable sincerity scarcely matches their skill.
But the acting is authentic, and perhaps the Sundance award was more because it's a movie about Mexican life than because of its cinematic flair.
Echo Park L.A. (Quinceanera)
Cert: 15
