Jesús (Juan Jesús Varela) and Rigo (Armando García), two adolescent boys from Guanajuato, Mexico, announce one morning to their families that they will make the trek north to the United States. Weeks later, when Rigo is found dead, Jesús’ mother Magdalena (Mercedes Hernandez), resolves to follow her son’s footsteps to see if he was able to escape the same fate as his friend. In her travels, she meets Miguel (David Illescas), a young man recently deported from the United States, and the two aid each other in their respective search for their families.   

2021 has seen a multitude of films examining the trials of life in Central America.  Identifying Features sits at the center of the Venn Diagram of I Carry You with Me and Prayers for the Stolen as it highlights the inhumanity of modern immigration as well as the horrors of gang rule in rural Mexico. Fernanda Valadez directs the 95-minute film, co-written with Astrid Rondero and released by Kino Lorber. The story is meandering, but as the film progresses it gives way to magic realism which leaves us to wonder what Magdalena is truly seeing and what is in her hallucinations. Unfortunately, for many, her story is all too real and all too familiar. 

At the center of the film, Hernandez gives an incredibly delicate and vulnerable performance. The tragedy and confusion of the whole situation is palpable as she pages through a thick binder full of photos of only the most recent recovered bodies from border patrol. Jesús is not there, but his bag and belongings were recovered. Death and loss are all around her when she makes the decision to follow her son’s route. A painful cat and mouse game ensues as she visits the bus station and is told to seek out a man named Alberto Mateo (Manuel Campos, Arcadio Martínez Ortega) who is the only known survivor of the hijacking of the bus which Jesús was riding. The feeling of desperation, that it is already too late, is overwhelming. 

Parallel to Magdalena is the story of Miguel, who recently returned to Mexico after being apprehended for crossing the border and again must start with nothing to his name. His journey south toward his family eventually intersects with Magdalena, but not before we learn that his town has all but fallen away, succumbed to gang violence so that there is nothing left, and few who will even travel that far. Miguel’s story is also one that is all too familiar for so many people who have traveled leaving their homes and families behind to pursue the promise of prosperity in the north, only to be met with the crushing legal landscape of the immigration process. 

The newfound mother/son relationship is what drives the latter half of the film. They are off to a rough start, neither very trusting of the other, but when Miguel returns to his family home to discover it empty, Magdalena’s comforting is what bonds the two lost souls and the film becomes much more focused as it enters into the third act. Here we learn what happened during the hijacking and it is every bit as heartbreaking and traumatizing as we had been warned. Valadez creates an incredibly tense final act for her film utilizing Ortega’s un-subtitled voice-over describing the harrowing events during the hijacking. The resolution of both his account of what happened and the ending of the main story weighs heavy on the soul. 

Identifying Features is a difficult film to watch. It is a timely film that forces us to address important issues as a race of humans, and while the delivery of its message is quite subtle without any one character specifically saying it aloud, it is unmistakable and unmissable. While this is a work of fiction, it is far from fantasy for millions of people living in South and Central America today and also for those who have crossed into the United States in an effort to provide for their families as they get sent back into the dangerous conditions they are trying to escape from because the legal pathway towards citizenship in this nation of immigrants is crippling, unforgiving, and inhumane. This is not a problem that can be ignored – either at the border or at its core – and until it is properly addressed, families will continue to be ripped apart and people will continue to die due to the combined ignorance and incompetence of the government bodies that continually fail their people.