Some movies come at the right time. I’m convinced One Battle After Another benefitted from the time it released in, and people being more drawn to films of that ilk. Valentina won’t win Best Picture, but it certainly taps into the conversation being had, and takes advantage of our political landscape reshaping how we look at our Latinx population, how valuable they are to our economy, and how they could just be contributing if we would let them.

Valentina (Keyla Monterroso Mejia) is a wonderful lead, because she lives in El Paso, a border town, and not only do we get to see her struggle to get by, we even see how the El Paso economy relies on tourism, as she works at a tourist trap in a reenactment. Most of the film, she’s trying to get the money to pay off her tickets so she can get her car back, and she becomes more politically minded as she realizes the system is set up for people to fail.

The story is a hybrid, meaning part of it is narrative, and the other pulls interviews and sound bites from real life. As an example, the film has several past Presidents and Presidential candidates talking about immigration policy like it was an enigma, or that it was ruining the fabric of our country. Valentina is a film with something to say, a point of view, and an engaging narrative woven through to bring in an audience not looking to be preached to by a documentary, but engaged by a movie with characters and a plot.

The funny thing is that this is shot so realistically that the actors playing Valentina’s brother and father are actually Keyla Monterroso Mejia’s real-life brother and father, even though they aren’t playing themselves. Hyper realism.

Tatti Ribeiro won a Film Independent Someone to Watch Award suggesting she has a bright future ahead of her, and I agree. Sadly, there’s no audio description, and the film is enough in Spanish that I don’t feel comfortable with a firm number grade. I’m certain enough to say it is Fresh, but it lives in a bit of ambiguity, much like I did as a non-Spanish speaker.

Valentina proves that hard work deserves a seat, and also that those who choose who gets to sit never think about the implications of making it harder for people to meet the threshold. It is a bright and intriguing entry from a director I hope to see more of in the future. Valentina could be the 2026 version of Norma Rae.

Fresh.