`Garcia Girls' is low budget but lovely

In this image released by Maya Releasing, America Ferrera is shown in a scene from, 'How the Garcia Sisters Spent Their Summer.'[Agencies]

Before she tried on a pair of magical pants or transformed herself as the award-winning star of "Ugly Betty," America Ferrera appeared in the indie charmer "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer."

The movie's been kicking around at festivals since 2005 and is just now being released theatrically, but it further reveals Ferrera's naturally lovely screen presence, something which was first on display in her acclaimed but little-seen 2002 debut "Real Women Have Curves." Here, she plays the youngest among three generations of women who discover themselves, and their sexuality, during a long, hot summer in an Arizona border town.

Writer-director Georgina Garcia Reidel was inspired by her own 70-year-old grandmother living in sleepy Somerton, Ariz., and the strength of her obviously low-budget feature debut comes from the intimate simplicity of her storytelling. Her observations are sweet and funny and even risque, and by presenting them in a stripped-down way, she makes them more relatable than if she'd slathered them in treacly sentiment.

Ferrera co-stars as Blanca, a 17-year-old virgin who's drawn to an older bad boy, Sal (Leo Minaya). He's new to town and therefore perceived as dangerous and exciting. Besides, she and her equally bored friends have nothing better to do. A snippet of dialogue: "Let's call someone." "There's nobody to call." (Reidel definitely gets the rhythms of small-town life, down to the Greek chorus of elderly Mexican gentlemen who sit on the same bench, day after day, talking about nothing.)