Raging Grace
Joy (Max Eigenmann) is one of millions of domestic workers globally. Some ignore her while some watch her every move like a hawk. She just needs to get through another day; but out of their sight, she’s saving for bigger dreams stability, safety, an abandoned career she hopes to pick up again and a house for herself and her daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla).
To secure this future, she’s working towards being able to pay thousands of pounds to a fixer for papers that will allow her remain in the country. With the clock ticking, she takes on an unconventional job at a mansion where she can live with her daughter hidden away from sight of her employer. It seems like the perfect next step towards freedom but Joy and Grace start noticing something strange about their employer and the danger that threatens them all.
In his feature debut as writer director, Paris Zarcilla proves himself a master storyteller here. He builds suspense like Jenga with a twist stacking layers upon layers before pulling out certain bricks so we see Joy’s hardships and Grace’s rebellious phase and get immersed in their problems until what looks like divine intervention shows up and it couldn’t have come soon enough (and it didn’t). There are nightmare sequences, close calls and cringe worthy insensitive exchanges between Joy and Katherine (Leanne Best), which make you wince just hearing them.
Cinematographer Joel Honeywell raises these stakes even higher by making the film’s main setting a stately old mansion where most furniture is covered in sheets and generally unkempt until Joy arrives feel more claustrophobic than ever before. Through careful lighting, costuming and production design. Joy’s life looks colourless until she steps inside that house but even there she does not belong. Each room has a suffocating unwelcoming air about it and every interaction with Katherine feels like she’s testing Joy. Altogether, these efforts leave you feeling continuously uneasy, waiting for the next blow or nasty surprise. “Raging Grace” is a thriller through and through.
Between Joy, Grace, Katherine and Mr. Garrett (David Hayman) Katherine’s great uncle whom she cares for, there’s a great game of shifting loyalties that ratchets up the film’s suspense. Just as you think you’ve worked out what each person wants or how they feel about one another something new comes along to challenge your assumptions. Eigenmann and Boadilla bring such intricate layers to their performances as Joy and Grace respectively carrying with them the weight of their characters’ histories but never getting an opportunity to voice their hurts until much later in the movie. It’s an amazing pairing of mother daughter duo against world, including racist employers who refuse to see them as people.
Because whether violence takes form of physical assault or thoughtless stereotypes diminishing Filipinos. Zarcilla connects these dots showing how dehumanization leads to real life cruelty. There are people who believe they can treat Joy like dirt; sexually harass her or worse and they think it’s their right because they benevolently employed her so no harm done!
According to the film, Joy said: “We make your food, give you drugs, sing your children to sleep, walk your dogs, take care of your parents, pick up your shit and comfort you when you’re dying until you die. You don’t help us we help you.”
Fortunately for all of us there is more to this story than just colonizer violence after everything else that has happened. Zarcilla also gives space for hope and happiness in the form of Filipino culture which is represented by Joy and Grace’s journey throughout the movie. They speak Tagalog most of the time but switch back and forth between languages freely.
There’s a scene where it shows Joy outside her job smiling at Grace as traditional music and dance fills their lives with color like nothing else seen before this point in the film. It visually takes back what should’ve always been given them humanity and also celebrates what was taken away from them culture while embracing a thriving community that had been overlooked by many people all these years.
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