Film Review: Milan (2004)

Oh god, where does on begin?

I watch Pinoy films a lot, probably even more than I did when I actually lived in the Philippines. For one thing, it helps me to keep up with my Tagalog -- not an easy feat when you're living in a remote part of the American West's desert regions. For another, it's like comfort food for me, you know? Especially if it's a good ol' fashioned drama, even better if it's with Sharon Cuneta. If you can give me great acting (a la Sharon), a decent story and maybe even a good-looking leading man, that's all I really ask for. I'm not looking for Terms of Endearment or even Casablanca. Just a passable story and some not-annoying acting.

Alas. That seems to be harder and harder to come by nowadays.

I miss the olden days of Pinoy cinema, like in the '80s when it seemed a new film was out every week. I understand that, whereas even just two decades ago the Philippine film industry was churning out literally hundreds of movies every year, now they're down to a measly trickle of about 50-60. Now, you'd think that having fewer projects in the pipeline would give filmmakers more time to really create good films, with stellar acting and finely honed storylines. They're would be more money available to throw to really worthy films, the kind that stand a good chance of making the international film festival route and maybe garner an accolade (an award?) or two.

Er, apparently not.

I found Olivia Lamasan's Milan on Netflix a few weeks ago and liked the title. I only knew Piolo Pascual from what my cousins have told me about him and from the huge, huge marketing machine that propelled on seemingly every billboard in Manila during my two-week sojourn back home last September. He's supposedly the bee's knees back in the Banana Republic, a real "stunner" whom the studios are grooming for big things. Even my cousin swoons over this guy, despite underground rumors that he's gay.

Well, apparently the whole studio-grooming process doesn't include acting lessons, because this so-called wonder boy is possibly the worst thing in this entire film.

Let's start with his whole character, Lino. The story goes that Lino's wife Mary Grace migrated illegally to Milan to work as a domestic helper, leaving behind poor Lino to fantasize about having her back in his arms again and generally acting all moony-eyed. After about a year of writing dozens of letters to his dear wife and having them all sent back to him as Return to Sender, he decides to head to Italy to look for her.

He meets and befriends another Filipino in Milan, a hard-working, obviously smart and street-savvy woman named Jenny, loudly played by the comely Claudine Barretto. She takes him in as a boarder in a large, expensive apartment that she shares with about a dozen other Pinoy illegals, some of whom have hooked up with each other out of loneliness, despite the distant reality of spousal ties back home.

Lino spends the first half of the film searching high and low for Mary Grace, shoving her old college graduation photo into people's faces and generally making an ass out of himself. Jenny tries to help him, acting as his translator and passing out flyers, and in the process they fall in love. Eventually, they move out of the crowded boarding house and into their own space, after which Jenny's irresponsible brother flies in from the Philippines and does his best to act like a real jerk. Fortunately, he succeeds.

In the end Jenny tires of the hysterical drama that seems to surround Lino's very presence and breaks away from him. At the same time Italy passes an amnesty law granting illegal immigrants rightful status. A year passes, and we are left to wonder if Jenny and Lino will find each other again.

Or, at least, that's what Ms. Lamasan presumably wants you to do. For me and B., who also endured this overly-long film with me, all we really wanted was for Jenny to come to her senses and get as far away from this weirdo as possible.

Under Mr. Pascual's overrated acting, Lino comes across as being a self-absorbed, whiny, needy snob with a serious need for some anger management. He garners no sympathy from me when he tries to find Mary Grace among the thousands of Pinoys in Milan, Rome and Venice. I mean, how much help would you give a stranger who suddenly runs up to you while you're walking down the street, shoves a photo in your face, asks you if you've seen that photo, and then after you give him a negative answer, follows you around for blocks basically screaming at you, "Please help me! Please help me find her!" Seriously, I'm surprised that none of the people he stalked followed called for the police. I would've.

When Lino first lands in Milan after a long train ride, he immediately finds a payphone and proceeds to call the number given to him by the agent who smuggled him across the border. When the person who answers turns out not to speak English, Lino starts getting increasingly hysterical and calls the number at least ten more times, if not more, each time becoming more agitated as he screams, "English only!!" Dude, you get to Italy -- illegally, no less -- and expect people to speak to you in English? You couldn't take two seconds to learn the phrase, "May I please speak to so-and-so" in Italian? Must you perpetuate the stereotype that Pinoys, like Americans and Japanese, are lousy travelers?

And so it goes for over two hours of increasingly excruciating behavior from a guy who, in the real world, would never have landed a girl like Jenny. As Jenny, Claudine Barretto can be a little hard to take. After years in show biz, you'd think Ms. Barretto would have honed some pretty solid acting chops. Still, she's a decent addition to the cast. Aside from the annoying habit she has of scratching her head every two minutes (I guess in acting-speak, that translates to, "I'm frustrated!"), she carries off her thankless role of Lino's romantic partner with more patience than I would've exhibited. Jenny harbors some secrets of her own, although the revelation 2/3 of the way through the film isn't much of a shock.

One of the really big disappointments in the film is the absence of any real character development, or at least none that makes sense. I don't think I'm ruining anyone's surprise by revealing that in the end, Lino realizes the error of his ways and admits to his glaring flaws, but it comes after an awkward-but-awfully-convenient time lapse, as if the director and screenwriter couldn't figure out how to "fix" the problems of their leading man and decided instead to just tell people he changed. The "sweet" ending did nothing to alleviate my concerns about Jenny's future with this incredibly short-tempered guy, one who exhibited violent tendencies more than once throughout the film.

In all the film couldn't seem to figure out if it wanted to be a romantic drama set in a foreign location, or a "message" film about the plight of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). Jenny and Lino are surrounded by a fascinating cast of domestic helpers, beauticians, nannies, and others who scrape by serving as the world's nursemaids and servants, not to mention as the self-sacrificing ATM's for their own families back home. One endearing couple whom Jenny and Lino befriend and who seemed to have a fascinating back story of their own learns that they're pregnant -- not so great news for them or the families they left behind -- but after one non sequitir allusion to a possible abortion, we never hear from them again. It's as if Ms. Lamasan only saw them as just more props for the great Lino-and-Jenny love story, serving their purpose as a kind of extra-loud Greek chorus before abruptly exiting the stage, never to be heard from (or of) again.

I suppose there really is no one story behind the OFW phenomenon, but rather a million of them. Unfortunately, while this film does touch on some of the recurring themes that OFW's face every single day of their lives -- the loneliness, the unavoidable estrangement from their families, the materialism of the folks they left behind, the feeling of exploitation both by their employers and their own kinfolk, the backbreaking work, the indignity of their economic, professional and immigrant status -- it ultimately does the struggling OFW workforce a disservice by portraying them once again as stereotypes caught in their own pointless melodramas.