Service

A domestic drama set inside a squalid family-run movie theater (that also serves as a home) showing porno movies and mostly patronized by gays, the title of this Filipino film refers to the hustlers lining the aisles in the theater to “service” members of the audience while the films are screened. Against this backdrop, we follow the family as it struggles to survive amidst a host of troubles. The matriarch, Nanay Flor (Gina Pareño) is going to court for the final decision on bigamy charges she has brought against her estranged husband (she's also angry with the children for failing to support her). At the same time, a relative she hired as a projectionist has gotten his girlfriend pregnant. And Nanay's daughter Nayda (Jaclyn Jose) spends her day trying to keep the place reasonably clean—washing obscene graffiti from the walls—and bemoaning the fact that she gave up a nursing career for this. The family's dreary duties are punctuated by casual squabbles as well as brief but explicit sex scenes—both gay and straight—involving them and their customers. Golden Palm-nominated filmmaker Brillante Mendoza apparently intended Service to offer a microcosm of Filipino society, which—if true—presents a stinging commentary on the state of the nation. But aside from a raucous episode involving a goat that invades the theater, Service is a pretty bleak movie with graphic sex that will put it outside the reach of all but the most adventurous of collections. Optional. (F. Swietek)