Fred Hawson

This was the feature directorial debut of Zoe Kravitz, who also co-wrote the screenplay with E.T. Feigenbaum. Kravitz had a very complex story to tell, but all those side characters were really not too memorable, even if they were played by familiar actors from the 1990s. I even remember the character credited as "Badass Maid" (María Elena Olivares), her strong greenish brew and her gibberish utterances, more than any of the others.

Lauren Gunderson is a prolific American playwright who usually wrote about female scientists. Of her 25 plays written since 2001, I have only seen one of them so far -- "Silent Sky" (2011) about astronomer Henrietta Leavitt -- staged by Repertory Philippines in 2018. "The Half-life of Marie Curie" (2019) was about the most famous female scientist, Curie, but sharing the stage was a fellow scientist, lesser-known, but also deserving of notice, Ayrton.

Writer-director Benedict Mique also devoted a segment interviewing real Filipino immigrants to Canada to tell their own stories, all of them relating how difficult it was for them at the start. However, I felt he missed an opportunity to inform about pre-departure details. Topics like visa application (what kind of visas did they get?), marriage (did Molly and Macky get married?), and looking for residence (how did they find Rosette?) were not mentioned at all.