La Bamba

La Bamba (1987) is a music drama you can watch online on iFILM. It follows Ritchie Valens, a Mexican-American kid who went from picking fruit in California fields to the first chicano rock 'n' roll star in barely eight months of fame.

Lou Diamond Phillips plays the seventeen-year-old who writes a tender ballad called "Donna" for his girlfriend and lands on the radio almost overnight. Home is harder than the charts. His older brother Bob (Esai Morales) burns with jealousy, his mother holds the family together alone, and Ritchie keeps having the same dream about a falling plane. Director Luis Valdez, a veteran of chicano theater, made this less a glossy showbiz reel than a family story with an accent and an ache.

Los Lobos cut the soundtrack, and their take on the title song climbed the charts itself nearly thirty years after the original. The film is honest in its joy and in an ending the audience already sees coming, which is exactly why it lands. It's for anyone who loves a music biopic built around a real life. Stream La Bamba (1987) online on iFILM.