‘At The Gates’ Review: Miranda Otto And Noah Wyle In Tense Psychological Drama Centered On Undocumented Workers And The Family Hiding Them

deadline.com:

At The Gates is an entertaining and timely thriller that blends the hot button topic of illegal immigration and undocumented workers into a universal story of fear, paranoia, and the perilous state of our own humanity.

That it succeeds to the degree it does is the fact that first time feature writer/director Augustus Meleo Bernstein keeps us guessing as to the intentions and the ultimate fate of its tight circle of main characters.

Essentially this is a chamber piece all set in one attractive Los Angeles area suburb’s home and the class drama taking place inside that seems ripped from headlines of individual tragic stories of illegal immigrants who have to worry at any given moment when ICE is going to show up at their doorstep, or in the case of At The Gates, at the doorstep of their employers.

Ana (Vanessa Benavente) is a Salvadoran undocumented immigrant who one day brings her college-bound son Nico (Ezekiel Pacheco) to help out on her domestic job at the L.A.