Images of a man wandering the dry barren landscape of New Mexico and dissolved images of a woman nicknamed Susan Hero open Jason Rosette's feature film, Lost In New Mexico. This character-driven feature tells the stories of several people, none of whom seem to achieve much closure by the end of the film. If this movie was based on a true story strangely it would seem more compelling, but as a work of fiction it really seems to meander like so many of it's characters. This is not to say though that the film doesn't have it's qualities, so let me break down the story first.

The main character Susan is a low-income woman who has recently lost her daughter, and she is seeking out a dishonored geneticist named Morell who claims he can clone her child. While the scientist comes off as a quack in the description his intentions are sincere, he provides this service to pet owners and the agriculture industry already. He sees this as an opportunity to be the first to clone a human being. Along with Susan is illegal immigrant Javier, a well-meaning soul but not very worldly. His English is poor and he has no real skills, but he does care for Susan.

Meanwhile a bumbling FDA agent, Carl Wisconsin, is tracking her in the hopes of locating and arresting Dr. Morell for his illegal intentions of cloning a human. The agent himself however has his own problems and distractions, and ultimately adds very little to the story.

But that's not all! On a very separate storyline we have Lonnie, a Native American potter who is touring around the area seeking out funds to pay for his daughter's tuition. As the only character to have things work out for him, due largely to really good timing, his ending was nice but his adventure seemed largely disconnected from the rest of the film.

I will give the film points for trying new things with editing. Rosette uses a motif of news updates and publicity audio for a fictional film to tie things together. I didn't feel it worked too well but I can at least say it's nice to see a new approach being tried.

Ultimately the ending was a bit unusual and as I mentioned earlier, lacked closure. The film wanders this way and that without too much focus. It moves very slowly, and most of the performances seemed pretty amateur. I will mention though that a scene of dialogue between Javier and Dr. Morell near the end came off very well and stood out from the rest of the movie. I'm not sure why I liked the scene so much, but I did.

I can see a lot of effort went into this movie, and despite it's shortcomings there's a feeling of genuine spirit that I can't quite put my finger on. While I find it difficult to recommend readers go seek out this film, I can neither tell you to avoid it.

After some consideration I'll give this film a six out of ten.

Jon Ashby