Stories set on the border between the United States and Mexico usually center on desperate migrants risking everything for a better life, even if it’s a dangerous choice that may lead to instant deportation, incarceration, or death. For director Fernanda Valadez, the starting point and focus of her feature-length debut Identifying Features couldn’t be more different: What happens with the ones who stay behind and wait to learn of their beloved’s fate? If the crossing is successful, confirmation takes time. If not, reports about dead or missing persons are hardly reliable and timely. Valadez centers her film on mothers like Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández), who isn’t able to obtain a clear answer about the whereabouts of her teenage son, Jesús (Juan Jesús Varela).

When a backpack is found, Magdalena confirms to the authorities that it belonged to her son. The body of the cousin who departed with Jesús has also been found, a likely victim of gangs or drug cartels that attack and kill would-be immigrants. While there is no corpse for her to identify, officers provide Magdalena a form to sign to acknowledge that he is dead. Olivia (Ana Laura Rodríguez)—an upper-middle-class mother called to identify her son who was kidnapped years earlier—reads and explains the document to Magdalena, who can’t read. Olivia also tells of her grief, how she stopped waiting for news of her son and instead comforted herself by accepting his death only recently. However, she has just discovered that he died just two weeks ago. Olivia advises Magdalena not to surrender as she did, no matter what others say, in one of the best scenes of a movie full of powerful moments.

The first half offers a detailed, moderately paced depiction of the frustrating legal process to discover if a missing person has died or remains missing. When Magdalena understands that the system won’t help her beyond a certain point, she continues the search by unorthodox alternatives. This is the moment when the film changes radically in tone and pace, becoming a disturbing and suspenseful story and an unpredictable adventure. Almost a different movie begins, equally impressive. Her road trip will encounter the same dark, life-threatening interests untouched by the law that might have cost the life of her son. Her only clue to Jesús is to find an Indigenous man, the only survivor of a massacre to confirm what really happened.

As she advances in her quest, there’s the growing sense that something sinister lurks behind her. The splendid cinematography by Claudia Becerril Bulos is constantly transforming, from sharp realism to the menacing nightmarish. The more the urban world is left behind, the more nature becomes a dangerous place hiding horrible outcomes. Images acquired a chilling and almost abstract lyricism during a flashback sequence featuring the apparition of El Diablo (the Devil).

The unsettling Identifying Features challenges expectations. It’s a vital film that uncovers a horror: some fates are worse than death.