— even if her script eventually muffles some of the film’s early promise.
This low-key drama about a trans Filipina looking for love (and a green card) while working as a domestic in Brooklyn is low-key in the right ways, utilizing subtlety and suggestion in place of spelled-out backstories or case pleading.
After a while, however, we need more emotional payoff than Sandoval is willing to provide.
Nonetheless, this U.S.-Philippines co-production is well worth a look for niche programmers and distributors in various formats.The writer-director is also the lead performer here, given an “introducing” credit (prior features “Senorita” and “Apparition” were credited to Vincent Sandoval).
We don’t know at what point her character Olivia underwent a gender transition, though she’s known fellow émigré Trixie (Ivory Aquino) since their shared childhood in the Cebu province.
Trixie is introduced marrying a handsome New Yorker, an apparent love
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