SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     Antoinette Jadaone's Sunshine (Project 8 Projects, Anima Studios, Happy Infinite Productions, Cloudy Duck Pictures, 2024) captures a young woman who knows she’s on the precipice of immense change, but when it comes it hurts, yet she's ultimately strengthened by it. Followed by an unexpected pregnancy, Sunshine Francisco’s (Maris Racal) dreams of making it in the world of gymnastics and penetrating the national team in hopes of competing for the Olympics, is forced to make grown-up decisions despite being a kid herself. What’s most interesting about Jadaone’s screenplay is how it challenges our perceptions both positive and negative. She's clearly out to elicit a response, not so much in a provocative way but a therapeutic one. No matter how balanced you may try to be as a viewer, you’re going to choose a side predicated on your own experiences (and perhaps even your own gender). And you may feel like the side you’re on is unfair in some moments and justified in others. As Sunshine seeks comfort, both her and the audience are able to see how much she’s changed. The moments spent with her sister, Geleen (Jennica Garcia) are affecting, because they show Sunshine caught in flux between her past and future. The story’s conflicts expose the shortcomings of her character and ultimately begs the question who is the person she is about to become. After a shocking revelation (one that literally unfolds with all the grace of a door being thrown open and does that shock ever work), Sunshine and Miggy (Elijah Canlas) begin to cut at each other, Jadaone soon makes a strong case for Sunshine having to sort out her own pain. Racal delivers a performance that builds in intensity and depth as the film unfolds and captures the nuances of quiet strength and vulnerability. The specificity with which she approaches the character keeps her believable at every turn. It helps when an actress fully understands the role placed before her. Another fantastic bit of acting comes from Garcia as Geleen specifically when she figures out that Sunshine is pregnant. 

     The push and pull of Sunshine and the young girl (Annika Co) illustrates the struggle to reconcile her youth with the immense weight of her decision. Midway through the establishment of Co’s character as introduced in the first few frames of the film is that she may or may not be Sunshine’s unborn child. The film is not attached to an ongoing debate or a mainstream agenda and seems like it was made completely outside of those confines, which is often rare. Sunshine is a movie about the uses and occasional uselessness of language, with stop-and-go verbal cadences that seem particularly attentive to what its characters say and don’t say. Sunshine honors feeling, passion, discomfort and hurt, and drops the audience into this world without an explanation. That style carries over to Pao Orendain’s equally raw cinematography, capturing Manila from the almost dusty sidewalk pavements. It’s a smooth snapshot of the fleeting yet monumental moments of despair and self-actualization. So much of what passes for Filipino cinema focuses on our trauma. Sunshine's tendency to guard her innermost thoughts and feelings is not a defense, she can hold her own with anyone, but it’s instructive to see why she clams up around Coach Eden warmly played by Meryll Soriano and best friend, Thea (Xyriel Manabat). Rather than stitch it into the fabric of the characters’ lives as reality does, it often sticks out like a sore thumb soliciting sympathy while minimizing all other empathetic avenues. Sunshine is not without its rough moments—there's an honest examination of unwanted pregnancy and abortion. This re-calibrates the characters as people who are dealing with human issues. Sunshine comes to life in dialogue of brash vitality and passionate understanding; the actors aided by Jadaone’s attentive direction, realize these scenes with energy that the overarching plot often omits. Sunshine captures that unexpected, earth-shattering moment in life when you realize adulthood, real adulthood, is not so simple. It’s difficult, it’s scary, and it’s heartbreaking at times. That’s what Racal’s beautiful performance conveys. When Miggy turned his back on their relationship once it reaches a pinnacle, you feel it in your gut she’s stuck alone with overwhelming emotions.

Written and Directed By; Antoinette Jadaone

Director of Photography: Pao Orendain, LPS

Production Designer: Eero Yves S. Francisco, PDCP

Editor: Ben Tolentino

Musical Scorer: Rico Blanco

Sound Designer: Vincent Villa

 

     Jackstone 5 (Apex Creative Production, Inc., 2025) starts out like one of those reunion movies where friends from long ago gather again to settle old scores, open old wounds, old romances and make new beginnings. All of those rituals have been performed by the end of the film, but curiously enough, the movie isn’t really about what happens. It’s about how it feels. This is a story more interested in tone and mood than in big plot points. The first act is devoted to introductions and plot problems are assigned to various characters. The second act develops the problems and the third act solves them with appropriate surprises. By the end, we can expect that one couple will reconcile, one will begin a new romance, one will find a new truth and at least one old secret will be revealed. Oh, and a skeleton will be taken out of the closet. All of those things happen in Jackstone 5 but in a strangely low-key way. The movie is written by Eric Ramos and directed by Joel C. Lamangan (who also appears in the film). It is human nature to form groups and be loyal to them. There are real groups, like families and artificial groups, like friends you grow up with. The artificial groups create instant traditions and in remembering them you are pulled back for a moment when all life seemed to be ahead of you. Now it seems more precious and that promise more elusive than ever before. Five gay men revisit their past, reexamine their present and prepare for a better future. They represent a vivid assortment of diverse characters which includes freewheeling Felix (Eric Quizon), Remy and Pido (Jim Pebanco and Gardo Verzosa), whose (friendship) seems to be in trouble, straight acting Naldo (Lamangan) and the insensitive Bruno (Arnel Ignacio). They rediscover themselves, the people they once were and the people they could once again become. They learn that life isn't about demarcation lines. It doesn't have arbitrary starts and stops that correspond with an age, an education, a look, a feel. Life is organic, a complex element that builds off itself where everything that's to come is shaped by everything that's been. 

     The movie deliberately captures a subtle complexion that allows it to exist sort of in a bubble in time, a bubble that has become stagnant but suddenly stretches back and if they can understand where they are and why beyond the physical sense, they'll remain in that bubble that will stretch along with them for the rest of their lives. It's kind of genius to get to know the story of these characters from the perspective of adults looking back. There's a lot of delight and laughter as the friends reconnect, but there's also plenty of drama that needs sorting out as well. The movie meanders, but that's the point. Life evolves but also stays the same. It can be recaptured by a sight, a sound, a smell and carried forward not as a mere reminder of a point in time, but as a living part of something larger that just sort of got pushed by the wayside, not completely erased with the passage of time. It might be a little hard to buy that they can remember with such vivid detail the various ins and outs of their childhood experience, but the cast does a fine job of selling the idea that they can and indeed have. The movie enjoys a very organic, natural flow. It's more about feelings and ideas that sort of just swirl around and becomes a little more evident with each passing moment. There's a genuine sense of reconnection between them and a very real, very tangible excitement about returning back to a place that in their hearts they still call home. Ignacio, who could have played his role half-asleep, still manages to show a gleaming pleasure in his moments of broad farce. And each of the performers registers strongly in their big moment. Of the entire cast, Quizon and Verzosa stand out in showy roles, they get to be great, because Lamangan doesn’t need them for anything structural. Pebanco renders an entirely disciplined performance that underlies the vulnerability of his character. Lamangan gives his lines personal rhythm and brittle snap and as the lonely singleton, Ignacio demonstrates that he is an able physical comedian. Jackstone 5 is imbued with optimism and positivity, and as long as you have the right support system, anything is possible. 

Screenplay: Eric Ramos

Director of Photography: TM Malones, Journalie Payonan

Editing: Vanessa Ubas de Leon

Music Scorer: Mikoy Morales

Sound Design: Fatima Nerikka Salim

Production Design: Cyrus Khan

Directed By; Joel C. Lamangan

     Adapted from Himala: Isang Musikal, the 2003 stage play, Isang Himala (CreaZion Studios, UxS Stories, Kapitol Films, CMB Film Services, 2024) is a film that stubbornly refuses to shake its theatrical roots. Director Jose Lorenzo Diokno strives mightily to make the material cinematic, trying any number of tricks at his disposal. Even more successful are the film’s complicated long takes, encouraging an ebullience in viewers that’s likely of a similar (if lesser) character to what audience members in 1982 felt when experiencing the film, Himala firsthand. It’s bound to Nora Aunor whose performance adds a note of tragedy to the character’s fate. It’s a lot of weight for a musical and as a film, Isang Himala feels like a play that is weighed down rather than a film that unfolds naturally. But here the seams of the theater keep showing at every turn, so on film, Isang Himala rarely feels free. Not in the way Aicelle Santos' Elsa seems too studied in her opacity – not a sign of Ricky Lee’s own sly handling of her on the page – as a character, she plays to sensibilities that seem out of place. Elsa seems too keyed into the projections and not the central complications of the role, but it’s a stolidness that is centered by the surety of the music. And that’s something the film hedges on and that Santos' performance flounders with. Isang Himala is a heavy musical. It is unrelenting in the way that its ending gives us no catharsis. Everything is so tightly wound; even the hints of levity sustain themselves on undercurrents of desperation. Diokno’s direction leaves the actors carrying that weight and it’s too much to carry. The film is aesthetically and tonally flat, with a sheen of browness which is the worst thing for the kind of pulsating crescendo that informs Diokno’s drama. But that’s not to say that Isang Himala isn’t still a partially successful adaptation, if only for the pleasure of hearing Lee’s bracing words delivered by Bituin Escalante and Kakki Teodoro. In fact, Teodoro is a live wire that ping pongs from manic outbursts to soulful, tear-streaked monologues, from carnal lusting to tragic resignation at a moment’s notice. Teodoro commands the film, leading the vast majority of scenes and staking her claim in the story. Her character Nimia recounts traumas and dreams, and opines about the ambition she has to transcend the limitations of imagination. Escalante and Teodoro's efforts reflect a performative staginess that doesn’t entirely work within the cinematic setting, even as they remain accomplished efforts. 

     That dissonance is further punctuated when considered alongside the work from co-star David Ezra playing Orly, who deliver no less affecting but a comparatively subdued performance. But it’s the lead role that’s severely lacking and no amount of fabricated prestige can change that. It’s this inadequacy that suggests Diokno and his team weren’t all entirely on the same page, which makes for a frustrating viewing experience. Isang Himala's digital filmmaking likewise serves to highlight the artifice of the entire production, lending the ironic semblance of a stage play despite all of the nifty camerawork. And yet, Vincent de Jesus’ music consistently make their way to the fore; Lee has a remarkable ability to effortlessly and eloquently weave such varied topics as religion, art and exploitation into powerful unity. Lee’s work is as relevant as it ever was, revealing both the subtle and obvious ways that power is wielded to stir anger and hopelessness, which is in turn too often unleashed upon those facing the very same struggles and hardships. And therein lies the problem: this adaptation is unwilling to risk much in cinematic transposition and thus putting all of the responsibility on the performers to provide the juice. It’s the same problem audiences have watched play out across any number of film adaptations. There’s a jarring oddity to the filmmaking when each pivotal turning point is framed with the same kind of boxed in camera work. This story is about people and the ways they externalize their grief, pain and anger. And, yet, Diokno privileges close-ups. His instincts seem out of sync. Yes, the story is moving towards that final operatic tragedy but we are not marking time until then. The story needs to live, breathe and feel. On screen, everything feels small and crowded. A story of rape retains the same cadence. When the music begins to play, the actors sell the enthusiasm but the filmmaking itself doesn’t feel like it’s tapping out keys or feeling rhythm. It’s dutiful and earnest but it’s not lively. Santos' hurt and pain, even when the direction traps her – can be unpredictable. It can be desperate and it can even be unhinged. Escalante and Teodoro holds the key to the film’s engagement. They inhabit the tiredness of their existence without announcement. Diokno insists on opening up the muscal, literalizing Elsa’s heartache, but the moments with Nimia have a naturalness that does not need to be emphasized. They just are. The real miracle comes in the brief moments the film allows them to just exist. As filmed theater, Isang Himala lacks the exciting personal dynamics seen in the art-making processes.

Screenplay By: Ricky Lee, Jose Lorenzo Diokno

Lyrics and Music: Vincent de Jesus

Production Design: Ericson Navarro, PDCP

Cinematography: Carlo Canlas Mendoza, LPS

Film Editor: Benjamin Tolentino

Music: Teresa Barrozo

Sound Design: Albert Michael M. Idioma, Emilio Bien Sparks

Direction: Jose Lorenzo Diokno