听 Set in a gentrified Latino district Los Angeles, the US indie Echo Park L.A. concerns the nearly 15-year-old Magdalena (Emily Rios), a preacher's daughter who falls pregnant and moves in with her macho gay cousin Carlos (Jesse Garcia) and octogenarian great uncle (Chalo Gonzalez). Co-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland have fashioned a sprightly and tender coming-of-age drama, which combines social commentary, engaging characterisations and a vivid sense of place.
It's an interesting change of tack for the filmmaking duo behind the gay porn comedy The Fluffer and was apparently inspired by 60s British kitchen-sink dramas such as A Taste Of Honey, an earlier tale of a preganant teenager setting up home with a gay man. Like Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas, Echo Park L.A. challenges the stereotypes of inner-city neighbourhoods awash with drugs and crime. Beginning with a colourful depiction of a quinceanera ceremony - an event in South American culture which marks the passage between girlhood and adulthood - Glatzer and Westmoreland proceed to celebrate an unconventional family unit.
"SHOT WITH A SENSE OF IMMEDIACY"
Alongside exploring the day-to-day experiences of the Latino youngsters and their relatives, Echo Park L.A. also incorporates into its story a gay white couple, who represent the new wave of property-owning residents settling in the area and who take a shine to the streetwise Carlos with significant consequences. And it also benefits from being shot with a sense of immediacy in authentic neighbourhood locations, and from the likeable, naturalistic performances of its inexperienced cast. An unexpected delight.
