Metro Manila Film Festival 2025: Not my story, but why do I cry?

By Joseph L. Garcia, Senior Reporter

Movie Review
Call Me Mother
Directed by Jun R. Lana
Produced by Star Cinema, The IdeaFirst Company, and Viva Films
MTRCB Rating: PG

WE USUALLY CRY when watching movies because something there happened to us, or someone we know — or at the very least, the film presents a premise that might remotely hit close to home. I started crying in the last 35 minutes of Jun Robles Lana’s latest work, Call Me Mother — which was strange and mildly irritating, because I knew damn well none of the things in the movie have happened to me, or anyone I know. Maybe that’s what a great performance does; and perhaps that’s one of Mr. Lana’s gifts, because suddenly, this story of queer parenthood is suddenly mine (I don’t even have a dog).

The movie opens with a talking heads-segment anchored by a coterie of real-life beauty queens (pageant-spotters would have a field day) introducing the character of Twinkle de Guzman (played by Vice Ganda). Twinkle is their pageant “mother,” the coach engineering their success in the pageant world. The death of their mother’s actual mother causes Twinkle to adopt his mother’s ward, dropping his responsibilities at work to raise the baby himself. A Vice Ganda-coded scene (the baby chokes on a pearl, and Vice, clad in only a towel, runs in the streets to ask for help; only to step onto a skateboard to bring the baby to the hospital himself) ends emotionally, solidifying the love he might actually have for an adopted baby, in his heart now fully his own.

In a boardinghouse, Twinkle raises the baby, growing into a child now named Angelo, with an unconventional family (including his own queer “mother” played by John Lapus — here strangely resembling the late Jaclyn Jose, perhaps as a tribute; and a bevy of young folks whose names I didn’t bother with). Angelo is raised in love and affection, and save for economic difficulties due to Twinkle’s irregular employment, all is well.

An opportunity to work abroad in Hong Kong Disneyland prompts Twinkle to start the legal adoption process so he can bring Angelo with him. To do this, he needs the signature and cooperation of Angelo’s birth mother. Unfortunately, she’s Twinkle’s ex-student: the glamorous, recently engaged Mara de Jesus (played by Nadine Lustre).

Mara has her own agenda: despite giving up her child in the pursuit of fame and success, the country’s top pageant crown remained out of her reach. The two hammer out a deal to get Mara her crown, and Twinkle the legal rights to the child. Twinkle’s chief fear becomes real: that a bond would form between birth mother and child, and that’s the rest of our movie.

Of course the Vice Ganda stamp of comedy is ever-present in the film. By now the comedian has proven that he’s an expert in camp and physical comedy, but his skill in seriousness is always a pleasant surprise. His recent turn in drama in another Lana work, the director’s offering for last year’s Metro Manila Film Festival And The Breadwinner Is… is easily knocked out of the park by this one. Truly, no one does drama better than a comedian who does a volte-face — those tasked to cheer up the world (perhaps because they’ve seen so much of its pain).

Mr. Lana’s work is often a chaotic teeter-totter of comedy and drama, and the stars are right in the middle, furiously juggling. This film, opening as a comedy and ending as straight drama, blends this formula more gracefully than in his other work. In tune with Vice Ganda’s volte-face, Ms. Lustre’s dramatic chops are added dimension by showing off her own skill in comedy (perfectly illustrated in a scene with a bicycle). If anything, she should have done more funny scenes in the film, just so Vice’s performance would have an equal parallel.

In another turn, the normally villainous Chanda Romero becomes an effective, soothing, kindly adoption counselor, a light touch and the face of the law in the film. The child playing Angelo, Lucas Andalio, was excellent, and might just bring home an award this year. The cast, however, is bloated by new stars whose presence in the film could have been erased without making much of a difference.

More than the fine performances in the film, the script is genuinely thought-provoking. Yes, it joins the canon of other Filipino adoption stories — perhaps a spiritual successor of specifically queer Ang Tatay Kong Nanay, then starring Dolphy, but a Vilma one is on the tip of my tongue; among others. This one is a stylish update of those stories.

Of course, like many stories that have come before it, this adoption story wants to ask: what does it really mean to be a mother? The film is rich in imagery of the Virgin Mary, the mother against whom the rest of the world is measured. The mothers in this story are all different: there are work mothers, queer mothers, birth mothers, bad mothers; etc. This story, however, dares to ask what’s better: a life fueled by pure, raw, love, or one made unwrinkled also by love, but mostly ease and convention?

The film saw a full house when I watched it in the cinema; the audience applauded while the credits rolled. I wiped my tears as I stepped out of the theater with some embarrassment, that I was such easy work for such a story. However, in the dark, I couldn’t see anyone else crying. But groups and groups of people filed out of the theater, and I noted tears on at least one person out of every group of three. Maybe this wasn’t our story — but we all have a mother, don’t we?