Review: ‘The Absence of Eden,’ starring Zoe Saldaña, Garrett Hedlund, Adria Arjona and Chris Coy

May 4, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Absence of Eden”

Directed by Marco Perego

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Mexico and briefly in Mexico, the dramatic film “The Absence of Eden” features a Latin and white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A Hispanic undocumented immigrant and a white American border patrol agent, who are strangers to each other, have various ethical dilemmas before their worlds collide. 

Culture Audience: “The Absence of Eden” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching dramas about the intersections of law enforcement and undocumented immigration in America, but the movie’s story is too muddled and unfocused to have much impact.

“The Absence of Eden” has an absence of a cohesive plot. This clumsy drama portrays multiple sides of undocumented immigration and law enforcement in the U.S., but the story falls apart in the last dreadful 30 minutes. Some of the movie’s cast members give capable performances, but they are not enough to save this flimsy movie.

Visual artist Marco Perego makes his feature-film directorial debut with “The Absence of Eden,” which was written by Perego and Rick Rapoza. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Taormina Film Fest in Italy. “Absence of Eden” does not have a large number of people with speaking roles in its cast, but the movie tries to do too much in a jumbled way, and then tries to rush things along to an ending that is ultimately underwhelming and seems incomplete.

“The Absence of Eden” follow the stories of two main characters over a period of approximately a few months. The first main character is Esmerelda “Esmee” Rojas (played by Zoe Saldaña), an exotic dancer from Mexico. (Saldaña and Perego are married in real life.) The other main character is Shipp (played by Garrett Hedlund), an American border patrol agent for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Esmee is first seen in Mexico at her exotic dancer job at a seedy bar. Esmee is giving a lap dance to a cowboy customer (played by Leonel Garza) in a back room. The customer gets aggressive and tries to force Esmee at gunpoint into doing a sexual act with him. She resists, and in the scuffle that ensues, Esmee grabs the gun and shoots him dead.

In a panic, Esmee decides she’s going to escape by illegally crossing the U.S./Mexico border into New Mexico. (“The Absence of Eden” was filmed on location in New Mexico.) Esmee grabs some cash and calls a secretive group that transports people illegally though U.S. borders. She makes arrangements to get this transportation to the United States. Esmee says goodbye to her grandmother (played by Petra Tovar Sanchez), who gives her personal journal to Esmee as a keepsake.

Esmee and a group of about six to nine undocumented immigrants make the journey by van to New Mexico. Emsee finds out that she has gone from one terrible situation to another. The transportation service is really a human trafficking operation that sells undocumented immigrants into illegal labor to unscrupulous employers. Some of the women and children will be sold into sex trafficking. Esmee has to fight off the sexual advances of the smuggler who’s leading this trip.

Emsee is in the van when she witnesses an unnamed young mother (played by Laura Cruz) get forcibly separated from her daughter Alma (played by Sophia Hammons), who is about 10 or 11 years old. The mother and Alma are understandably distraught and devastated when the mother is taken away to an undisclosed location. Esmee has compassion for Alma and starts taking care of this child while promising she will do everything she can to reunite Alma with Alma’s mother.

Esmee finds out that she is being forced to be a drug mule (someone who smuggles drugs for drug dealers) while she and a few other undocumented immigrant women have been sold into working as maids in a dumpy motel, where they are treated like prisoners under the watchful eyes of security guards at all times. The motel’s undocumented maids also get frequently locked up in rooms when they sleep, so they can’t escape. The motel manager Phil (played by Kevin Owen McDonald) is an elderly creep who seems to be attracted to Esmee.

Meanwhile, Shipp is stoic in his job and in his personal life. He has some “daddy issues” because his retired father was a well-respected ICE agent, and Shipp feels somewhat overshadowed by his father’s admired reputation. Shipp’s father, who does not have a name in the movie, is not seen on screen, but his voice can be heard leaving messages for Shipp, who doesn’t return the messages. (Ted Koch is the voice of Shipp’s father.)

Shipp is a bachelor who lives alone. His love life starts to heat up when he meets Yadira (played by Adria Arjona) at a bar. They hook up immediately in the back seat of his car. Yadira tells Shipp during their first encounter that she works as an elementary schoolteacher and she’s a single mother to a son named Gabriel (played by Chrysovalentis Martinez), who is 11 years old. Yadira lives with Gabriel and her grandmother Maria (played by Teresa Cepada Rodriguez) in a modest home.

Shipp works with a racist ICE border patrol agent named Dobbins (played by Chris Coy), who takes pleasure in being violently brutal to many of the undocumented Hispanic immigrants whom he detains. Shipp witnesses this brutality when he’s working with Dobbins. Shipp only stops the brutality if it looks like the victim might need to be taken to a hospital if Dobbins continues the assault.

Shipp keeps his personal life separate from his work life. However, one day at work, Dobbins convinces Shipp to bring Yadira on a double date for dinner at a restaurant with Dobbins and a woman named Rebecca (played by Sarah Minnich), whom Dobbins has recently begun dating. Dobbins doesn’t find out that Yadira is Hispanic until this double date.

“The Absence of Eden” wanders for long stretches that don’t do much to further the story. What about Alma and her missing mother? That storyline is mostly forgotten. Much of “The Absence of Eden” shows various incidents that happen in the lives of Shipp and Esmee. Shipp is usually emotionally closed-off, but he begins up to open up to Yadira. The couple’s relationship becomes more serious when they declare their love for each other. However, in a movie like “The Absence of Eden,” a love affair like this will not go smoothly.

Saldaña and Hedlund have moments of portraying Emee and Shipp convincingly. The problem is that “The Absence of Eden” screenplay depicts these two main characters as mostly stereotypes. By the end of the movie, viewers will learn almost nothing about Esmee except that she’s an outlaw for killing a man in self-defense, and she decided to take care of Alma, who is not seen for most of the movie. Yadira is an interesting but underdeveloped character that limits Arjona’s nuanced performance. The rest of the movie’s cast members are serviceable and not outstanding in their roles.

The storylines of Esmee and Shipp converge in a very predictable and awkward way. Esmee has a preachy monologue near the end of the movie that is absolutely cringeworthy because it sounds “only in a movie” phony. The direction of “The Absence of Eden” tries to be gritty and artsy at the same time, but it just doesn’t work for this unfocused story. “The Absence of Eden” seems to want to make a big statement about the exploitation and brutality that undocumented immigrants can experience in America. However, that statement rings hollow when “The Absence of Eden” refuses to show or tell anything meaningful about the movie’s main undocumented immigrant and who she really is as a person.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical released “The Absence of Eden” in select U.S. cinemas on April 12, 2024.