MY FAMILY

Gregory Nava's MY FAMILY is a sterling accomplishment that takes one of the finest Latino acting ensembles ever assembled and makes us laugh, cry, and feel for a multigenerational family that spans the modern era in Los Angeles. The fact that this family history is a record that includes both success and failure, tumultuous and stable times, tragedy and triumph gives MY FAMILY the power and scope of an epic. The story begins in the 1920s, when patriach Jose Sanchez mades the trek from a dusty pueblo in Mexico to the chaos of a youthful city in transition. Sanchez manages to find work and establishes a new life that plants the roots of a family tree which grows over the subsequent decades.



As narrated by Pacho Sanchez (Edward James Olmos), one of Jose's three sons, who, along with their two sisters, form the branches of the family tree, MY FAMILY, traces the lives of its members in myriad directions: into marriage, violent death, professional achievement, social activism, machismo street life, jail and, finally, the future. An outstanding cast, which includes Jimmy Smits, Esai Morales, Eduardo Lopez Rojas, Elpidia Carrilo, Jenny Gago, Constance Marie, and Lupe Ontiveros, in addition to Olmos, touches and troubles us with a story that has not been told in this way before.



MY FAMILY is powerful melodrama that goes much deeper than emotional theatrics. Nava and co-screenwriter/producer Anna Thomas have created a portrait that is dynamic and effective because it captures an authentic alndscape, histroy and view of Los Angeles where the immigrant is not an outsider or marginal presence but the focus of attention. In the present political climate, it is both gratifying and refreshing to watch the richness of Latino lives play across the screen. MY FAMILY is a passionate film which gives us something to thing and feel about.-Geoffrey Gilmore.