And the Breadwinner Is...

this is great movie i've ever seen and this is so realistic and emotional movie.

Ganda grabe, miss ko na breadwinner namin.

On Love and Labor

“Work is love made visible” – The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Life is indeed unfair. Some people may be born into a family of vast fortune and others – to that of poverty. Regardless of economic status, families survive and flourish not just because of wealth but also because of love. That is the kind of love that is ignited between father and mother and then passed on to the eldest down to the youngest. It varies and it changes shape and size, endlessly trying to give and receive to each member of the family – each developing a sense of responsibility to look out for the welfare of each other. But what if sometimes, as bad luck would have it, only one of them is willing to give more out of love, for family’s sake?

Dead center comes And the Breadwinner Is… written and directed by Jun Robles Lana, headlined by the Unkabogable Box Office Star Vice Ganda as Bambi – the sacrificial lamb of the family.

Bambi’s life is miserable – that much is evident in the movie previews and much hyped-up promo campaigns, including a Showtime segment. The film shows this with the typical Star Cinema style of opening sequence where the main character on voice over narrates what she is and what her values are, including struggles and challenges, hopes and dreams.

Bambi’s own words flesh out her character- “pinagdugtong ko ang araw at gabi”. Obviously, she does all this for the welfare of her family that is miles away from her suffering yet benefiting from all the hard work. And so, we also meet the rest of the Salvadors:

Jhong Hilario stars as Biboy, Bambi’s brother and Glady’s Reyes as Mayet, Biboy’s husband – two able bodied adults left to oversee the household. Then we also have Maris Racal playing Buneng, Bambi’s youngest sister and Kokoy De Santos as Boy, her youngest brother(ette). Weaned and developed from Showtime, we also see the two children of Biboy and Mayet played by Argus and Kulot as their role names Puge and Danda. As if two unemployed adults and four minors are not enough, we add to the list the role of Bambi’s ailing and dependent senior citizen mother aptly called Momshie played by the great Malou De Guzman (Lukring – Ober Da Bakod). We may not have missed anyone already as this cast seemed to be enough to deliver a solid story, but it went deeper into unnecessary complexity by having another character in the body of Eugene Domingo as Baby, the oldest of the five siblings. Other characters are played by MC Mwah and Lassie as Bambi’s friends and Anthony Jennings as an outsider having an interest in the goings-on inside the Salvador family.

Along with the typical odd jobs that Bambi takes, an arsenal of Vice Ganda characters has been injected into the film like infinity stones on a gauntlet and given life in a snap of a finger with the hope that it gives instant comedic relief. Unfortunately, this trip down Vice Ganda characters memory lane seemed to be passe and just acted like a wet tinder to an old pit of laughter that does not set ablaze anymore. It felt like a time filler, a cannon fodder and had no substantial contribution to the story that one could just glaze over with a “haha…” then anticipate -if not hope- for the next better punchline.

The movie is understandably a comedy-drama, but it’s quite sad at times when the goal is to be funny.

Take heart, because when the movie punches that line it is a solid one. One cannot help but laugh whole-heartedly at how dark some of the comedy this movie can deliver. It’s a kind of humor that many Filipinos and OFWs for that matter might be able to relate to nowadays while saying “Our life is shitty already…might as well laugh about it while we’re at it”. Even Eugene Domingo that has a role with limited characterization and purpose was able to take a material like an old plain cloth, apply her own craftsmanship and create a crazy costume of funny. That is the brilliance of Eugene Domingo as a comic – not even a single word and still you burst out laughing. Of course, saving the best for last (laugh), Vice has delivered a solid one as well, even if there were times old roles were conjured needlessly. This movie proves why she is the comedian supreme, succeeding in delivering the perfect timing of humor regardless of the scene, without sacrificing the messaging that can be understood in many levels. However, they are all just flesh easily dished out. The marrow is not in the laughs generated, but the sudden punch on the gut and slap of reality of their situation, especially the protagonist’s.

The soul of the movie is clearly Vice Ganda as Bambi at its center, and it has no shame of doing so even to the expense of stripping the characterization of the other roles around her – they serve one purpose and one purpose alone - to make Bambi suffer and stand out. She gets scourged along each scene as she uncovers failed promises, disappointments and broken dreams, each discovery like a nail driven deep into her hands. Mixed with some humor as a short palette cleanser, the movie balances the opposing ideas of sacrifice and indebtedness/gratitude especially in a Filipino family setting. It then reaches its boiling point to that one long uncut scene where Vice Ganda shows why she is dubbed Unkabogable Star. It’s as if the movie was created only for this one crucial scene that is reminiscent of Vilma Santos’s Anak and Bea Alonzo in Four Sisters and a Wedding. Surely, that scene will be put into the halls of such legendary scenes for decades to come.

If not intended by the writers (and the poster), Bambi is quite analogous to Christ but not the newborn in manger this season, but the suffering one as the movie tells her own passion from bearing her family’s cross into getting nailed on it. She is in the center of the story breaking their bread “kabog” and passes it on to her family as a sign of giving herself up for the greater good or somehow, other might view as an abuse of her family. Regardless, like anything that’s used and abused, everything and everyone reaches an irreparable point, and this is where the movie has suddenly let go of what it should need to do to wrap up a good ending – characters that are fully realized other than the protagonist’s. After the long confrontation and (not so) big reveal, it’s quite expected that family will rally behind a common goal, but there’s something lacking in showing real motivations involved - were they really changing for good? Or is it still because of money to come?  Perhaps this is wisdom hidden by the writers between things unshown and unsaid? Is it for the moviegoers to judge and maybe treat the family members as mankind that can either go up or down the path of life’s trepid uncertainties? Who knows? In the end, the movie said what it needed to say but didn’t really show how it should be done. It has poured out its soul and bared its frustrations and maybe it’s left to the audience to contemplate on their own as they go back home and take what’s similar in their own lives and work on what can be redeemed.