Long Gone By (2019) | Film Review

The life of a single parent is already a difficult and monumental task. The trials and tribulations of daily struggles – maintaining a job with substantial benefits, stretching finances paper thin, meeting a cavalcade of ever-increasing responsibilities – proves a daunting accomplishment for anyone. For an undocumented immigrant mother from Nicaragua living in Midwest USA with her teenage daughter, and recently served with a deportation order, Ana Alvarez’s life just became far more complicated.

Erica Muñoz stars as Ana, and now she has a decision to make. Faced with leaving Warsaw, Indiana, a place she’s called home for years, Ana must decide how to provide for her college-bound daughter, Izzy (Izzy Hau’ula). Recently accepted into Indiana University and ineligible for scholarships or financial aid, Izzy’s future is cloudy at best. As deportation looms, Ana decides to take drastic action and rob several local banks in order to provide for Izzy’s education, hopefully securing enough funds before she is forced back to her Nicaraguan roots.

Because essentially the entirety of Long Gone By is told from Ana’s perspective, so much of the storytelling unfolds through Ana’s eyes. Andrew Morgan (who also directed) and David Wappel’s script disposes of any needless exposition and instead takes us on Ana’s journey as she prepares to leave all that she loves for likely an eternity. By doing so, Morgan relies on the deftly capable Erica Muñoz to carry their film.

An actress deserving of increased exposure, Muñoz conveys a dire desperation in Ana that we absolutely need to believe in order to swallow several of her more boisterous decisions. Played by a lesser actress, the film would wallow in generic genre trappings as we take part in yet another heist caper that we have all witnessed a thousand times. Instead, Muñoz’s stern maternal instinct overrides any issues or quibbles I have with several plot points – the police in Warsaw seem to be woefully ill-equipped to handle just about any illegal scenario and apparently gas stations in this area fail to report even the most obvious of suspects – and keeps the story focused on her plight to provide for Izzy in the only manner afforded to her despite years of contributions to the very country she is being evicted from.

Andrew Morgan plays the story straight, following along with Erica Muñoz’s intensely fierce portrayal and refusing to let his story get bogged down in clichés. As Ana scrambles for a solution, we are also introduced to the plight of American immigrants and their tribulations within the system. Your appreciation for Ana’s story and her choices will likely vary depending on your personal politics (an illegal turning to violence as a solution seems tailor-made to ignite conversations on both sides of the fence), especially since this topic is at the forefront of every water cooler conversation in 2019. Yet Morgan resolves to maintain his focus, showcasing the ups and downs of immigrants themselves, heavily leaning on his own sympathetic ear for their journey. A few nagging sections where very little happens are quickly overcome by Morgan and Muñoz snapping us back into lockstep with Ana’s ultimate end game.

By the final frame of Long Gone By, Ana and Izzy arrive at their inevitable resolution and the audience will be left with questions of their own to ponder. And in an age of bombastic explosions and never-ending bravado, it’s refreshing to watch the credits roll on a film and simply sit back and think: what would I have done?

Long Gone By premiered Saturday, August 17, 2019 at HBO’s New York Latino Festival

Starring Erica Muñoz, Izzy Hau’ula, Tony Demil, Tim Bensch
Screenplay by Andrew Morgan and David Wappel
Directed by Andrew Morgan