SummaryStarting in provincial Mexico and continuing as first Iván, then Gerardo, journey towards sharing a life together in New York City, I Carry You with Me is an intimate love story, as well as a soulful rumination on family, sacrifice, regret, and ultimately, hope.
SummaryStarting in provincial Mexico and continuing as first Iván, then Gerardo, journey towards sharing a life together in New York City, I Carry You with Me is an intimate love story, as well as a soulful rumination on family, sacrifice, regret, and ultimately, hope.
Ewing joins a generation of filmmakers who are using every piece of cinematic grammar available to communicate the emotional core of their stories and characters, fusing the impressionistic liberties of drama with more visceral truths to startling and potent effect.
In Ewing’s hands and as anchored by two superb performances, Iván and Gerardo’s romance gets scaled up to an epic, a searing saga of the undocumented experience in which love is the binding force.
It is a gorgeous film, and one that deserves to be seen on a giant screen as much as that other only-in-theaters release this weekend, F9. And even when I Carry You With Me becomes so lost in its aesthetic that you worry it’s losing focus, this impressionistic approach doesn’t take away from what is an intimate, extremely personal story of two men fighting to build a life with each other.
The production, which grew out of the filmmaker’s friendship with the two men, Iván and Gerardo, is so heartfelt, and the material so intrinsically powerful, that I Carry You With Me slowly catches up with itself, and lights a fire fueled by food and love. That’s a winning combination in this story, just as it is in real life.