Monday, December 27, 2021

MMFF 2021: Review of NELIA: Nutty Nurses

December 27, 2021



Over the last month, nurse Nelia Katigbak (Winwyn Marquez) had noticed that a series of patients have been dying in Room 009 at the Remedios Medical Center. Suspiciously, all these patients were under the care of the medical director Dr. Reynaldo Solano (Raymond Bagatsing). However, Dr. Solano would catch Nelia talking to an imaginary visitor. One accused the other of negligence and psychological instability, but who is telling the truth? 

Winwyn Marquez came across as quite stiff as Nelia. I guess she was directed to appear suspicious in all her scenes so that the viewers will not know what was going on in her head, but she could not effectively pull this off. On the other hand, Raymond Bagatsing was quite over-the-top as the simultaneously respectable yet slimy Dr. Solano. His long experience in playing these duplicitous characters came in very handy, so that it looked effortless for him.

Ali Forbes played the stereotype nymphet nurse Ana, who was always lusting over Dr. Solano or Dr. Josan (Shido Roxas). Her sex scenes do not really serve any purpose in the course of the story, only serving to titillate and nothing more. Mon Confiado played it very low-key this time around as Nelia's soldier visitor, who existence was an uncertainty. Lloyd Samartino played a General who may or may not be clueless about the mysteries in the hospital. 

While it seemed that they could've had a medical consultant on the set, there were still a number of questionable scenes. Dr. Solano specialized in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry, he was also apparently able to do surgery for kidney stones and inflamed tonsils. A patient was supposedly given a drug to stop the pulse temporarily (there is no such thing), putting her at risk of actual harm when the code team came to resuscitate and defibrillate her. 

The main premise can actually very interesting, aiming for a mind-bending mystery which will boggle the viewer up to the very end. The screenplay of Melanie Honey QuiƱo was executed by director Lester Dimaranan in a way that the plot was made more convoluted mainly by the purposeful insertion of several confusing scenes, which can be very exasperating when they turn out to be illogical, inconsequential, confounding or deliberately deceptive red herrings. 3/10. 


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