September 4, 2024
Atty. Kyle Nicolas (Boo Gabunada) lived with his mother, former movie actress Jewel Ouyang-Nicolas (Rebecca Chuaunsu), who has been suffering from dementia for the past eight years. When their latest caregiver gave up and resigned, Kyle was forced to accept former BPO employee Teresa Firmante (Elora Espano), the first person who answered his ad on Facebook even if she never had any formal training in caregiving.
When she found an old diamond-encrusted locket containing a photograph of her as a child in braids with her parents, Jewel began to tell Teresa stories about her youth (Nathalie Zoey Villamanca, Sophie Ng) -- how the bitter relationship between her and her brother Magnus (Jian Myco Repolles, Benedict Cua) came to be, how she fell in love with a Filipino boy Dave (Tommy Alejandrino) and defied her parents' objections by marrying him.
This melodramatic story of Chinoy family could have been the plot of Regal Films' "Mano Po" series. However, the good thing here was that practically all the Chinese roles were played by real Chinoy actors, so the delivery of their complex lines in deep-level Fookienese dialect was very smooth, particularly Chuaunsu and Norman Ong (as Jewel's father Jasper). Too his credit, Boo Gabunada's delivery of his few Fookienese lines also sounded authentic.
Part of the film involved flashbacks to the 1970s, even if the overall effort was admirable, it was inevitable to have some inaccuracies in the details, like white plastic UP IDs on lanyards. There were some puzzling casting decisions which felt like miscasting, like Chinese-looking Tommy Alejandrino as the supposedly very Pinoy Dave (whose eyes were actually compared to tarsiers), or the decidedly Pinoy-looking Francis Mata as the elderly Magnus.
Rebecca Chuaunsu's performance deserved the two Best Actress awards she won in Morocco and Taiwan filmfests recently. Her portrayal of Jewel's dementia was very realistic and heartbreaking, such that she will make you reflect about your own mother. Sophie Ng's Young Jewel was feisty and empowered ahead of her time. I wish that the writer-director J.E. Tiglao and co-writer Maze Mendoza could have developed a better story arc for Elora Espano's Teresa, whose unconscionable behavior against Jewel did not deserve what she got in the end. 7/10.
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