July 13, 2023
School teacher Ofelia Santos (Sylvia Sanchez) decided to become a domestic helper in the Middle East when her father became bankrupt and suffered dementia. She was employed in the household of Khalid (Mohamad Helmy) and Bahar (Hilda Gomez), who depended on her to do everything in their house.
Josie Hermosa (Kakai Bautista) from Samar decided to become a domestic helper in Singapore to support her three other siblings who were not able to have any education like her. She was employed in the household of a popular celebrity Yuan Ji (Uno Santiago) who was as messy as he was handsome.
Feliza Gonzaga (Dianne Medina) was nursing school graduate who was forced to seek work in Canada as a caregiver because of unfortunate family circumstances. She was employed by Carlo (Mark Neumann) to care for his elderly, cantankerous and physically-impaired father Papa Jannsen (Bob Hamilton).
Norman Rosales (Rafael Rossell) and Oscar Malabanan (Christian Vasquez) were skilled workers who both worked construction jobs in the Middle East (separately), while their wives took care of their growing children back home. The two had big dreams on what businesses to invest their savings in when they returned home for good.
Neal "Buboy" Tan began his directorial career in the mid-1990s with quickie flicks with naughty titles. His best-known work came a decade later, with films like "Ataul for Rent" (2007) and "Tarima" (2010). He also had films that tackled social issues like HIV in "HIV: Si Heidi, si Ivy at si V" (2010), maternity hospitals in "Bigkis" (2014), or street beggars in "Homeless" (2015). He tackles another advocacy in this, his latest film.
For this film, which was produced in cooperation with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), Tan told the stories of five Filipino individuals who had decided to try their luck of earning more money working abroad. This, admittedly, is already a very common topic tackled in several local films, usually sad stories of abuse and tragedy. Another common storyline was about two OFWs who fall in love with each other.
However here, Tan does something different as he spun his own positive take on the OFW saga. The tone of the whole film was so earnest and idealistic, at times saccharinely so. The humor can be corny and old-fashioned, except for Kakai Bautista's hilarious Josie segments (which had a "Sunday Beauty Queen" vibe). To his credit, Tan also added a little suspense before the final outcome of each story so things won't be totally predictable.
The name actors in the cast do their best to carry their scenes with neophytes or non-actors, with varying success. A most distracting casting choice was that of the late John Regala as the father of Sylvia Sanchez when he was only 3 years her senior. There were awkward accents all over the place as spoken by a lot of minor characters playing foreigners. There were supposedly "Chinese" or "Singaporean" characters spoke unintelligible Mandarin.
The poster says that the script was based on "true stories", but the film itself was not too clear on that claim. These characters felt real when their full names were all cited when given "OFW Awards" in one scene, and they were shown with their successful businesses afterwards. I was expecting Tan to show their real photos and how they are doing now over the closing credits as was usually done in biopics, but that did not happen.
A most un-cinematic decision was having Arnell Ignacio, a past deputy administrator of OWWA, give short lectures about Pre-Departure Orientation Seminars, Singapore's Ministry of Manpower, or how to work as a registered nurse in Canada. If not, he would spout trite inspirational platitudes, like how hard work would pay off. His talking head scenes made the whole film feel like a promotional ad for OWWA. Its message may be misconstrued. Is this film giving potential OFWs false hopes of a rosy future? 3/10.
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