Family Obligation
Isabel Castro/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Mija (2022)
There are two documentaries in “Mija” fighting for dominance. One is about a young woman’s attempts to make it as the manager of various up-and-coming musical acts in the Southern California scene. The other shows how the only documented members of undocumented immigrant families face incredible personal pressure in their professional lives, as well-paid jobs mean money for immigration lawyers and the chance to regulate everyone’s status. Both of these separate stories have one center: Doris Muñoz, the self-made music talent manager who opened her home and family secrets to director Isabel Castro. Doris is so endearing you are pretty much automatically on her side; as a subject she was a real find (“Mija” is the name of her company). The trouble is Ms. Castro doesn’t quite know how to manage the multitude of stories Ms. Muñoz’s life contains.
The pressures on the Muñoz family due to their immigration status is the most obviously dramatic section, especially since all the shown family members are goodhearted, loving people who any country should be proud to claim as citizens. One brother has been deported to Mexico, and since Ms. Muñoz is the only one able to cross the border for visits, it’s her time and finances which take the hardest hit in order to care for him. Despite their best efforts, the pressures put on Ms. Muñoz by her family are consistent and intense. On the other hand, Ms. Muñoz is well aware she owes her life chances to the sacrifices her parents have made, and hates herself for occasionally resenting their demands. It’s a fine demonstration about how parents can harm their children even as they try their best for them.
The career aspect of Ms. Muñoz’s story is more conventional and handled less well. The film begins with a clear focus on her work as the music manager of Cuco, a young artist seriously on the rise. But suddenly Ms. Muñoz’s six-figure salary is gone as she experiences a serious professional and financial setback. Unfortunately this is where the unseen hand of the filmmakers comes into question, because the exact details of what went wrong between Cuco and Ms. Muñoz are glossed over, and also it’s never made clear how Ms. Muñoz discovers Jacks Haupt, an R&B singer from Dallas with an almost identical personal background. The scenes of Ms. Haupt and her boyfriend discussing her career in the car are presented as being filmed before Ms. Haupt and Ms. Muñoz meet, which means they are staged and therefore the movie’s not playing fair. Interference of documentary directors with the lives of their subjects is nothing new, but Ms. Castro should have been very clear where she stepped in, and how. The documentary is badly weakened by her failure to do so.
Otherwise the main lesson of “Mija” is a clear exploration of how complicated lives are made tougher by the expectation that children will live for their parents, instead of the other way around. The obvious rapport between Ms. Muñoz and Ms. Haupt and the trust they both have in Ms. Castro carries the movie, so it feels churlish to complain about its weaknesses. But if you can’t trust a director to be honest about the impact she has on her subjects, you are making reality television instead of a documentary. And the people in this movie deserve better than that.
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