mauvecages

We are introduced to our protagonist, the ‘breadwinner’ Bambi, who is living her entire life - working one job after another, in Taiwan, with the hopes of building a house for and supporting her family back in Philippines. Once she’s convinced that her new home is almost complete, she decides to go back home and surprise her family… clueless to the shock that awaits her instead.

I do think the heart of this story was in the right place, but boy oh biboy! the execution was so bad that even though I am interested in the premise of the plot, I can’t bring myself to recommend it to other people. The movie sadly suffers with the very basic requirements of storytelling. The structure, continuity, character motives, character developments and tonality is all over the place.

The movie feels half an hour too long where they waste time with choatic “funny” sidelines where jokes don’t land, and having the same arguments again and again when just a scene ago it seemed like they’ve already talked through it. The climatic breakdown scene could have been impactful but it feels tiring instead to see the siblings have the very same arguments again, and then magically resolve everything in the most cop-out fashion with no actual takeaways. The ending doesn’t bring anything to the narrative, because none of the siblings changed because they grew as people but rather because life happened to them and so they changed their ways to wrap up the film (you'll understand if you watch it).

I wish a better film with a tighter script is made on this story, so I can then recommend it unhesitatingly.