The Cost of Living is an 80min narrative that is essentially the story of Fe, a young and pregnant Latina woman who struggles with the economic insecurity of her family and bringing another member into it. It also presents an underlying theme about an individual struggling with her culture, her moral standing in regards to sexuality and her socioeconomic state.

The narrative focuses on American culture through a personal tale about pushing forward to attain economic equality at price of individuality to the dominant culture.

The motivating force that dictates the tone and structure of the narrative is, in a single word, desperation. The cost of forging through day to day anxiety as she shoulders the responsibility of pulling her family out of substandard living circumstances to attain a modicum of happiness, an all too elusive American dream.

The realization of the film from script to screen is revealed through the combination of a structured narrative and neo-realism as the story follows the subjective viewpoint of its heroine, Fe. Though she lives in what she sees as the bland reality of a poverty-stricken culture, she’s been exposed to the fast paced, vibrant world of upper-middle-class wealth both professionally and socially through her mentor, Angela Torres Marshal.

What makes The Cost Of Living unique is that it breaks away from the formulaic tale about oppressed victim’s struggles and triumphs against villainous oppressors, which arguably perpetuates and reinforces the polarization of stereotypes, to a story about a young American woman struggling with her wants and needs contrast to her socioeconomic situation.