Focus Feature's latest title Half Brothers is a heartfelt portrait of two long-lost brothers connecting with each other for the first time after the death of their father, and although the film is filled with enough cackle-worthy moments to hold its own amongst other bromantic buddy comedies, it also features incredibly important messages about the immigration experience, and the way immigrants (specifically Mexican immigrants) are treated in America.
PRIDE got the chance to speak with Half Brothers stars Luis Gerardo Mendez and Connor Del Rio, as well as director Luke Greenfield about crafting the film, the timeliness of telling an immigrant story in this current political climate, and the surprising queer relatability of one of the film's main characters.
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"You know, growing up, I would see kids that were different. It was a harsh world. I think a lot harsher than today," Luke Greenfield told PRIDE about the creation of Asher, one of the half brothers (played by Connor Del Rio), who, in the film, is often bullied, ridiculed, and harassed by those around for being different, an experience queer people often experience on a regular basis. "I always felt for the people that were just different, because the people that are different are the exciting ones, are the unique ones. We really wanted to explore Connor's character of Asher. He's different, but that doesn't mean to judge him, that doesn't mean you can't bond with him. And the father's a traditional Mexican father, so he does just doesn't know how to relate to that kid. And I think this journey in this movie, what I love about it is, we as an audience get an experience of what his normal life is like. It's not fun, it's hard to be picked on and ridiculed. And so that was a very important part of his character."
"One of the reasons why I made the movie was to tell two stories, two different tones in one film," Greenfield continued about the film's themes. "So on one side you have a very grounded character comedy, right? But the other half of this movie is this very dramatic, heartbreaking, tragic story of an immigrant. We wanted to get it right and we wanted to be honest and real. I wanted to go places that, in a normal comedy, you don't go to. So, I mean, we have all these kind of outrageous scenes with these two half-brothers fighting and there's a goat involved, and then all of a sudden we cut to Mexican immigrants in a cage in ICE. And I wanted to balance that tone and have you go on a journey that was not only funny, but very heartbreaking and tragic and tear-jerking. And that was really important to me. And that was really important for us to do the research and get it right. And to do as an authentic story as we possibly could in that nature."
Half Brothers premieres in theaters December 4! Watch the official trailer in the video below!
