im very happy abt this movie's existence, though honestly the emotional beats feel lacking. i feel like the movie's story could have been written better, bcs in my perspective it felt a bit boring and predictable. being just predictable would have been fine, some movies can be rly good even tho you know what happens, but i j couldn't rly get with it because i was bored.. and some scenes felt very, well, how do i describe it? like so exaggerated, to the point na it takes me out of the experience. like yung scene where the doctor was telling sunshine off and started using all the classic points boomers use to protest abortion. i get that a lot of boomers do suddenly lecture u irl (experienced it myself) but the way she just started naming every point u see from a facebook comment threw me off. i guess a stronger point to this is the character of rhed bustamante, mary grace. she just suddenly shows up, and it feels like the film is kinda forcing u to feel something by just inserting her into the story all of a sudden without much logical reason for her to be there. i get that the film wants to make as much points about abortion as possible, but come on. atleast let her existence in the movie make sense. :') weirdly enough, the film feels like something that wasn't really made for filipinos only, but with the thought of having an international audience alongside the filipinos. i can't word it the best right now, but the film just feels very much like an exaggeration of filipino culture, with both the bad and good parts. on top of that, i must admit that the whole plotline of sunshine basically imagining her unborn kid and mary grace's unborn kid as real children weird at first. i tried rationalizing it by thinking that it's just a manifestation of sunshine's guilt, since she is a product of conservative society, but the film never really gives us any clarity on whether sunshine was a conservative person or had more progressive beliefs to justify this point, so either way my rationalization was probably just me giving this film the benefit of the doubt. it was a choice, really, but it makes the film weird bcs it just felt out of place and too pro-life for a supposedly pro-choice film, you feel me? the scene where the unborn kid tells her she "gets it" is pretty cool tho, i just wish they gave that plot device more thought.
on the upside, maris racal did a very good performance, and she deserves all the praise for conveying exactly what sunshine feels. and it's nice to see a portrayal of manila in its actuality, like, for people in the lower tax brackets, especially in the pov of girls like sunshine and mary grace who cannot help but to feel guilt for their actions even though they know they're not ready to be mothers. it's difficult to find the voice in you to stand up for yourself when every other facet of society tells you you're sinful. i just think there's still a lot of ways this could have been improved upon. it's a good precedent for filipino cinema tho!
im very happy abt this movie's existence, though honestly the emotional beats feel lacking. i feel like the movie's story could have been written better, bcs in my perspective it felt a bit boring and predictable. being just predictable would have been fine, some movies can be rly good even tho you know what happens, but i j couldn't rly get with it because i was bored.. and some scenes felt very, well, how do i describe it? like so exaggerated, to the point na it takes me out of the experience. like yung scene where the doctor was telling sunshine off and started using all the classic points boomers use to protest abortion. i get that a lot of boomers do suddenly lecture u irl (experienced it myself) but the way she just started naming every point u see from a facebook comment threw me off. i guess a stronger point to this is the character of rhed bustamante, mary grace. she just suddenly shows up, and it feels like the film is kinda forcing u to feel something by just inserting her into the story all of a sudden without much logical reason for her to be there. i get that the film wants to make as much points about abortion as possible, but come on. atleast let her existence in the movie make sense. :') weirdly enough, the film feels like something that wasn't really made for filipinos only, but with the thought of having an international audience alongside the filipinos. i can't word it the best right now, but the film just feels very much like an exaggeration of filipino culture, with both the bad and good parts. on top of that, i must admit that the whole plotline of sunshine basically imagining her unborn kid and mary grace's unborn kid as real children weird at first. i tried rationalizing it by thinking that it's just a manifestation of sunshine's guilt, since she is a product of conservative society, but the film never really gives us any clarity on whether sunshine was a conservative person or had more progressive beliefs to justify this point, so either way my rationalization was probably just me giving this film the benefit of the doubt. it was a choice, really, but it makes the film weird bcs it just felt out of place and too pro-life for a supposedly pro-choice film, you feel me? the scene where the unborn kid tells her she "gets it" is pretty cool tho, i just wish they gave that plot device more thought.
on the upside, maris racal did a very good performance, and she deserves all the praise for conveying exactly what sunshine feels. and it's nice to see a portrayal of manila in its actuality, like, for people in the lower tax brackets, especially in the pov of girls like sunshine and mary grace who cannot help but to feel guilt for their actions even though they know they're not ready to be mothers. it's difficult to find the voice in you to stand up for yourself when every other facet of society tells you you're sinful. i just think there's still a lot of ways this could have been improved upon. it's a good precedent for filipino cinema tho!
