Unfortunately, both films sink into slightly anticlimactic endings that don’t provide these women with the full portraits they deserve.įilmmaker Emily Cohen Ibañez’s Fruits of Labor is mostly told from the perspective of high schooler Ashley Solis, who lives in Fresaville, California, in an overpacked house with her three siblings, her mother, and 11 other families-all sharing one bathroom. Yet, they’re united by a common interest in how far we’ll push ourselves for that elusive, improved tomorrow. These central characters, Ashley in Fruits of Labor and Ludi in the same-named film, are different ethnicities, different ages, and live in different parts of the United States. The latter is a narrative feature about a Haitian-American woman working as a health care aide in Miami, supporting her cousin and goddaughter back in Haiti and trying to make as much as money as she can to send back. It follows her as she struggles to complete her senior year of high school while supporting her family and helping her undocumented mother evade ICE. The former is a documentary about a Mexican-American teenager picking strawberries in small-town California. At what point is the American dream no longer worth chasing? The toil involved in trying to build a better life is examined by both Fruits of Labor and Ludi, two films that are seemingly dissimilar.
