‘Flower Girl’ REVIEW: Woman Undone, Comedy Persists
‘Flower Girl’ REVIEW: Woman Undone, Comedy Persists
Sue Ramirez as Ena with KaladKaren as Mel behind her in Flower Girl | Still courtesy of CreaZion Studios and The IdeaFirst Company
One thing women and Philippine films have in common (further compounded when they’re Philippine films directed by women), is that they’re expected to be perfect from the start. The dramas have to hit emotional highs, while the comedies are expected to be funny and analytical. All this to be compared to what they’re able to accomplish in the West and simply disregarded. This is why I’m grateful for Flower Girl. Not a perfect comedy for someone raised on single-camera comedy shows with more jokes than one can catch in a minute, but it packs a witty punch along with its tender affinity for the vast experiences of womanhood.
Ena (Sue Ramirez) has everything a woman needs and wants - a gorgeous man, great sex, an excellent job, and the world at her feet. So when Ena blatantly disregards a trans woman’s identity in a gas station bathroom, she’s cursed the next day to lose her romantic coin purse, her “poochy” so to say in the film’s language. It’s a loss that her boyfriend, Robert, tries to stay with her through.
But he’s only a man, so naturally they break up. It’s one of the funniest break-ups put to film, when one of Ena’s emotional mechanisms to loosen up is used to take a strained connection to more literal, absurd territory. Of course, it can’t help but be observed that it’s also a bittersweet moment of a man using a woman’s vulnerability to leave her in shame. This scene highlights how Sue Ramirez finds the relatable in Ena while being game for everything the film throws at her.
The stakes are laid out with fairy tale simplicity: Ena is given a flower with wilting petals and tasked with finding true love before all the petals fall off in order to be able to get her poochy back. This makes Ena gather a random mix of dating app matches that she tries to court in one go. It’s a funny vehicle for seeing Ena’s desperation ramp so high, so sadly, that I think could have used more jokes aside from the great ones it had to highlight the absurdities of modern dating — and even dating queerly.
Ena’s experiences are contrasted with Mel, a trans woman whose lived womanhood Ena doesn’t acknowledge, and with Dick, a potential suitor who may be her chance at love. These are contrasts the film could have played with to richer effect if it were longer, though it doesn’t feel like the film missed a step in painting as nuanced a picture as it could of showing a cis, straight person’s understanding of sexuality changed by her circumstance.
Fatrick Tabada’s visual eye puts a lot of beautiful moments on screen together. The tender montage of love that Ena has with Dick is one of those scenes, complemented by Teresa Barrozo’s score. The great thing about its brisk 74-minute length is that Tabada really nails what each scene needs to do before it gets to the next scene. Ena’s climatic sort-of reunion with Poochy feels as surreal as it would be for a woman barely sober at a party, as much as it is a tender embrace of everything that Ena is and isn’t capable of as a woman.
Time will tell how far Flower Girl’s impression goes in Philippine culture, but it’s such a dire time for Philippine comedy. Between a queer-sensitive and censor-happy ratings board and the lack of anyone really willing and able to take Philippine comedy through its next chapters, at least the film is keeping the genre alive in an uncertain time. Ramirez said, “I want to make something that gets people talking, that starts a conversation that doesn’t end in the cinema. You talk about it in the car ride home, you talk about it before you go to sleep. Something that will really make people think and rethink.”
So, like Ena, I’m standing in front of all 26 of you reading this asking, pleading earnestly, to round your barkada up to watch this before or after drinks. Maybe that night will be another core memory for y’all, or maybe your GCs will disband after. But at least you watched a fun and sweet adult fairy tale along the way, right?
