Status: Rejected

♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Virginia Divinagracia (Ruby Ruiz) is one year shy of her 70th anniversary on earth. She lives with her breadwinner daughter Anna (Alessandra de Rossi) who is a single mother to her granddaughter Sophia (Yani Villarosa) who is studying to become a nurse. Virginia also has a son named Clark who is working illegally in the United States, which is one reason why she is eager to get a visa to join him there, but she is denied by the US Embassy for the fourth consecutive time. As Anna becomes more and more vocal about the family’s money problems, Virginia seeks solace in her friend Tessie (Beverly Salviejo) who prods her to beef up her social media accounts. There she meets “Steve”, a retired American soldier looking for love and companionship. He promises to take her with him to America through a fiance visa. Will Virginia finally fulfill her dream of setting foot in the USA?

My reaction to the first half of Status: Rejected - finally, a comedy that doesn’t have to tickle me to make me laugh. Ruiz’s Virginia is crass yet endearing. My reaction to the second half of Status: Rejected - WHY THE FAWK IS THIS MOVIE SO DEPRESSING? And so you might be wondering, what gives? I don’t know. I believe there is this subgenre of cinema where a film is marketed as a comedy and the movie is funny, not gonna lie, but then you realize halfway that the comedy is nothing more than a thin veneer placed there to conceal a much deeper and more serious societal issue that we would otherwise not talk about if thrown at us as is.

That socially relevant issue is the isolation and existential crisis that the elderly tend to grapple with in their twilight years. That lingering feeling that they are nothing more than a burden. The societal ill referred to are the bottom feeders who prey on those feelings of despair by dangling a semblance of hope and understanding in front of the victim, usually catching them hook, line, and sinker. Of course our first reaction to anecdotes like this is to wonder how idiotic one must be to fall for such obvious scams. The good thing is that Status: Rejected makes it a point to flesh out Virginia’s character and family life so that in the end it is not hard for the audience to feel sympathy.

One thing I really liked about the movie, though, is how the multigenerational family setup gives the audience their own anchors within the story. For instance, the two Gen-Z’s sitting next to me would often react negatively and ask “what the hell is her problem” every time de Rossi’s Anna would lash out on her mother and daughter. In my head, I thought, well, young padawans, watch this movie again 20 years from now when you become breadwinners to understand where all that rage is coming from. Of course I didn’t tell them that. Let’s not go around ruining the doe-eyed innocence of youth. Life will ruin that for them, soon enough. LOL.

So in the end, do you really have to take sides? I believe that defeats the purpose of the film, as well as its message. The best way to interpret Status: Rejected is to understand the dynamics in a multigenerational household. Understand the challenges each generation has to face, and then start a dialogue from there. After all, this is what the ending implies, in true Cinemalaya fashion, where the character is in a running vehicle trying to convey all possible emotions through her face. The airport scene that comes before that with no dialogues, just two pairs of eyes talking? Chef’s kiss. You never go wrong with a Ruiz/de Rossi pairing, especially when it’s in the indie scene.

I was vacillating between four and five stars as my final rating, but I decided to give a perfect score because Status: Rejected gave me both a good time and a pensive mood as I exited the cinema. There is always that debate as to whether cinema should entertain or provide social awareness. And then there are films that do not force you to choose, because they provide both. Status: Rejected is one of those films. I hope it finds its way to mainstream cinema. This one, I believe, has a promising crossover appeal.