SAN ANTONIO — Between the Pearl, the River Walk, La Villita and others, there are enough distinct San Antonio locales in the rom-com "Say a Little Prayer" that Alamo City moviegoers would hardly believe it was ever meant to take place somewhere else, let alone the fact that the prayer of St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things, is a key plot point.
But that was indeed the case once upon a time for screenwriter Nancy de los Santos-Reza, who originally set her crowd-pleaser in her home city of Chicago. That would change when she discussed her project with an interviewee for a scripted history of San Antonio that she was hired to write for the city's tricentennial in 2018: She brought up the story, the personal connection to her own grandma, the prayer of St. Anthony...
"And she said, 'You mean our San Antonio?'" de los Santos-Reza recalls. "It just was like, boom. ‘Oh my goodness, I’m supposed to be doing it here.’ It immediately changed everything.”
She got to rewriting. Given how similar the Alamo City and Chicago are with their Mexican American communities and public art priorities, it was a seamless revision.
Such turns of fate – like nabbing international pop star Luis Fonsi for his film debut and finding a perfectly manicured, don't-move-anything abuela's home to shoot in – proved to be so common in the production of "Say a Little Prayer" that they were almost like answered prayers in and of themselves.
Doing it their own way
Directed by Patrick Perez Vidauri, the story follows Adela (played by Galveston native Vannessa Vasquez), who owns an arts gallery and puts up with a noncommittal boyfriend her best friends can't wait for her to break up with. Her grandmother, insistent that Adela finds a husband before she dies, implores her to pray to St. Anthony—promising the love of her life will show up on her doorstep.
Cue Fonsi's Rafael, a visiting art curator from Mexico who takes after Adela as they bond over their shared passion, his character as charming as his 2017 smash hit "Despacito." This being a movie, however, their journey to a happen ending won't be as swift as that.
Neither, it turns out, was de los Santos-Reza's. She yearned to bring her starry-eyed, Latina-centering love story to the big screen despite Hollywood's historical aversion to protagonists who looked like her.
The major industry players wouldn't bite.
“I had tried for a number of years to get this produced in Hollywood and just could not get the interest from any of the studios even though I did have a good track record. They weren’t interested in making a Latino-centric movie where they were the stars of it, where they weren’t doing anything illegal.”
Despite studies finding that Latino and Hispanic audiences see more movies per year than white and Asian-American patrons, most mainstream movies still pigeonhole those characters into stereotypical or one-dimensional depictions, often most eager to write them into crime stories. Even the Mexico-set musical "Emilia Perez," Netflix's Oscars contender about a lawyer who helps a cartel leader transition to be a woman, relies on exploiting that country's struggle with cartel violence.
So, de los Santos-Reza, who in the 1990s served as a producer on "Selena," went the independent route.
“As grandma says in the movie, ‘I don’t want to go to my death bed thinking I didn’t make all my children happy.’ I did not want to be 100 years old and look back and say, ‘Damn, I didn’t do that movie,'" de los Santos-Reza said.
In 2022 she linked up with Vidauri and his production company, Migrant Filmworks, to get her movie made. Raised by "a strong mother," he had experience telling stories of strong-willed women.
It may have taken some time for "Say a Little Prayer" and de los Santos-Reza to find a director. But suddenly, Vidauri said, it was a whirlwind.
Within three months of him signing on, cameras were rolling in San Antonio.
"It was such an abbreviated timeline, and a large part of it was because Luis Fonsi was only available for October of that year.”
Enlisting Fonsi was key to securing funding and excitement for the project. Perhaps not since Sandra Bullock strode onto the Arneson River Theatre stage in "Miss Congeniality" has such a well-known entertainer visited the Alamo City for a film shoot.
De los Santos-Reza initially laughed off the suggestion from a co-producer that they even try contacting him; but it turns out he worked with Fonsi before, and still had his email. The script was sent, and a short time later he responded: He wanted to be part of it.
She was "shocked." Vidauri, vacationing with family in Mexico at the time, said they "threw on 'Despacito,' blasted it all over the apartment."
"It was a little bit surreal," he added. "We knew we had something special on our hands at this moment."
But after watching "Say a Little Prayer," it's hard to imagine it without Fonsi's suave charm, and the way his grounded character balances out the movie's wily comedy and lightly fantastical tone.
Having Fonsi on board was just one example of what de los Santos-Reza and Vidauri both called serendipity.
More proof was in their success finding places in and around San Antonio to film.
"The way we got our locations sometimes was really almost magical,” the director said, noting that a picturesque Mexican ranch in the movie is actually in Helotes, and Adela’s grandmother’s home appears in the movie exactly as its occupants' own grandmother decorated it before her recent passing.
All the knick-knacks in that casita were in the perfect place, and the clutter perfectly lived-in. The home would be cleaned out two weeks after shooting.
Forging a legacy
"Say a Little Prayer" has had a respectable theatrical run, having opened in 100 U.S. theaters on Thanksgiving weekend and remained there in many of them. This weekend, you can still catch it at Santikos Embassy and Santikos New Braunfels.
For de los Santos-Reza, seeing the reactions of fellow movie lovers in the crowd only proves what they've been missing.
“One woman who was 25 years old said, ‘This is the first time I had seen myself on the screen.’ It’s kind of sad and yet wonderful we were able to achieve that," she said. “I’m thrilled that those images of Latinas who own a business, who fall in love with the wrong person just as much as anybody else and who have aspirations are in that movie forever.”
More and more, stories of Latino life and success are reaching wider audiences. Eva Longoria's "Flamin' Hot" was a splashy title at the South By Southwest Film Festival last year, and "The Long Game," featuring Dennis Quaid, told the true story of a group of Del Rio high school golfers who broke barriers in the 1950s.
The mission is about telling stories of authenticity with authenticity, Vidauri says, and "sharing that with all of the United States and the world so people know we exist and that we are more than what is portrayed in other peoples’ minds and movies.”
"Say a Little Prayer," which also stars Jackie Cruz, Vivian Lamolli, Pepe Serna and a Mexican icon in Angélica María, accomplishes that by putting Latina personalities and faces at the center of a genre that for decades has been dominated by white actors. Slowly, contemporary filmmakers are chipping away.
As much as "Say a Little Prayer" is a testament to Latina friendship and Mexican-American traditions, it's also unmistakably a love letter to San Antonio itself. The title card drifts into view over Hotel Emma. A marquee shot of the downtown skyline might make you consider a staycation. The Last Bandoleros make an appearance. And only those who endured the deep freeze of February 2021 might catch an early reference to it.
It's often said that cities can be their own characters in movies. For de los Santos, San Antonio is part of their film's legacy.
“It was the way it was supposed to be," she said. "San Antonio, the city, is the star.
