QUIETLY RADICAL

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     A deceptively simple romance doesn’t take away that there is something quietly radical at work in Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.'s Siargao set love story, Unconditional (BR Film Productions, 2025). There’s a leap of faith you have to go with in its narrative. In a central scene when Anna (Rhian Ramos) comes to realize that Greg (Allen Dizon) is transgender, you understand that Greg is coming from a place of vulnerability, where the basic idea that any woman will enjoy his company is a surprise to him, perhaps he’s dizzily blinded by attraction. And perhaps the film is pointing out that these labels, while relevant and necessary for an expression of identity, are artificial in a spiritual or psychological way. In most movies about heterosexual women who fall in love with transgender men, the woman in the relationship usually wants to keep the man’s transgender identity a secret, out of fear that she will be shunned by her peers and/or society, Unconditional is no exception. Trans stories where the trans experience isn’t central to the unfolding action are hard to come by. The aim of this film seems to reframe the reaction we typically see when characters reveal themselves to be transgender. Greg and Anna's romance is very sweet and doesn’t move too quickly, punctuated by a passionate and intense love scene. Dizon and Ramos share a chemistry that sizzles. Greg is generally quiet and introverted. He might have had a lot of experience with life’s hardships, but it soon becomes apparent later in the story that he doesn’t have much experience when it comes to love and romance. It’s not spoiler information to reveal that Anna eventually finds out that Greg is transgender. How she finds out won’t be revealed in this review. It’s enough to say that Anna finds out that Greg is a trans man after she’s already fallen for Greg but they haven’t had sex yet. 

     Unconditional is not the type of movie that keeps the same pace throughout the story. There are ebbs and flows, just like there would be in real life. However, there’s some melodrama in the last third of the movie that could make or break the romance between Greg and Anna. How it’s resolved is kind of rushed into the story in a way that could happen in real life. The biggest strength lies in the chemistry between Dizon and Ramos. Alix portrays the film’s protagonists with palpable empathy through naturalistic dialogue. Dizon with cagey finesse and Ramos with captivating elegance. Toss in some fantastic supporting work from Elizabeth Oropesa as Greg's mother Dolores, who shifts from one state of body and mind to another without being forced while Lotlot de Leon as his sister Terry is strong and understated. Unconditional is a simple story, but not a simplistic one, with performances that make all the characters seem fully dimensionalized. It eschews melodrama arriving at a lovely, unforced sense of acceptance.There is naivety and acceptance from Greg that makes the film different. It’s a sincere effort that feels earned and in its modest way, a deeply romantic gesture. The movie looks at the big picture through intimate lens. Ultimately, the film’s love story largely succeeds on its strong sense of place. Alix and screenwriter Jerry B. Gracio carefully and respectfully manages the different characters’ points of view, plunging us into a unique world and its inhabitants’ challenges in navigating their place both with and without their respective circles. Together, Allen and Ramos shine. Beautifully realized, Unconditional makes Greg work for what he wants and by the end, both he and the movie have fully earned the reward of our fascinated attention. Unconditional is never in a hurry. But if you’re looking for an immersive love story that takes you places you might not know, that challenges your conception of what romance looks and feels like, Unconditional is a great place to stop.


Direction: Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.

Screenplay: Jerry B. Gracio

Director of Photography: Rain Yamson II, LPS

Editing: Xila Oflada, Mark Llona

Production Design: Jhon Paul Sapitula

Music: Marco Morales

Sound Design: Immanuel Verona, Fatima Nerikka Salim


JUST A FUTILE EXERCISE

Posted by Jojo Devera ,


     Dan Villegas' Uninvited (Warner Bros. Pictures, Mentorque Productions, Project 8, 2024) has a big curious twist. The twist is Vilma Santos, the person herself, that the most becalmed and cognitive of movie stars would chose to appear in a revenge flick, that most crass of exploitation genres. Moreover, Villegas has followed behind. They have taken a long look at exploitation revenge pictures and have decided their pedigree alone could elevate such material, literally. They may be right. But that's somewhat unfair. Uninvited is never cheap - righteousness is complicated here. Uninvited, which was refashioned with a major hand from Santos, is a thinly veiled retrospective of her career. The tale is told in jumbled flashbacks, as if nonlinear narrative were a reward in itself. It's not. Uninvited squanders plot impetus and even with constant crosscutting it's lethargically paced, slogging through soap-operatic back stories and maddening irrelevancies. I was eagerly awaiting the chance to watch this film. It seemed a decidedly eclectic mix of action hero with a dash of cerebral stimulation thrown in. Santos’ character, Lilia Capistrano/Eva Candelaria for the majority of the film, is aloof from the viewer. Her reluctance to communicate in anything other than tormented expressions (it seems odd on the stern face of Santos, who has always looked old) and stone cold staring means that at no point do we ever connect with her in a way that will make us care for her like we probably should. Santos, it must be said, delivers another performance that is controlled, but it’s the frustrating lack of intimacy with her situation that, for me, makes this film feel flat. Give her credit for stepping into an exercise this provocative, but an exercise is what it remains, the itch to blast away too easily steadied by the itch to reassure. 

     Villegas seems to have relied more on the audience's perception of the situation than trying to give us any kind of real meaning. The fact that we know how we would act in this situation, will predispose us to feel one way or another about Lilia's own predicament; it provokes ideas in our own memory that stand in the way of anything in the film being fresh or new. And Villegas seems unable to redress that imbalance. By being biased to the situation, we are unable to see past the actions of the protagonist as anything other than simplistic, clichéd emotional churlishness. Unfortunately, the plotting is rather pedestrian and often flawed, undermining this film’s potential for greatness. By the time the big moment arrives when Lilia faces Guilly Vega (Aga Muhlach) who raped and murdered her daughter, Lily (Gabby Padilla) and irreversibly changed her life, it’s clear what kind of movie Uninvited ultimately wants to be. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that the film is completely drained of any remaining irony at this point, abandoning intellectual honesty in favor of giving the viewer what they want. It elicits no real sympathy for Lilia, who in the revenge process turns into a cartoonish character. And even though it ends with some hope that our heroine can find redemption, it all seemed like just a futile exercise in grandstanding for Villegas who seemed to care less about the justice system. What Uninvited tries so hard to deliver and what it ultimately fails at, is generating sympathy for our main character. With top class production values, Uninvited should have been a cut above your standard revenge thriller. Lilia should get revenge and we should feel satisfied vicariously. Yet while the story does conclude more or less the way it ought to, it doesn’t have the feeling of catharsis that a revenge thriller needs. Somewhere over the course of Uninvited, most of the flavor has gone out.


Directed By: Dan Villegas

Written By: Dodo Dayao, FSG

Director of Photography: Pao Orendain, LPS

Production Designer: Michaela Tatad-King

Film Editor: Marya Ignacio

Musical Scorer: Len Calvo

Sound Designer: Allen Roy Santos


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