UNINVITED
Philippines, 2024, 93 minutes, Colour.
Vilma Santos, Aga Muhlacj, Nadine Lustre, Mylene Dizon
Directed by Dan Villegas.
A Filipino drama/melodrama set amongst the wealthier echelons of Metro Manila. It is a revenge story.
The occasion for the action is a 55th birthday party for an influential wealthy man, played by former romantic and comedy lead, Aga Muhlach. A slick businessman, now wealthy, wants to celebrate his life and achievement in the most bombastic way. He has many well-dressed and affluent guests at his party, rather fawning on him. There is also his wife and daughter. The wife is revealed to be in a liaison with one of the businessman’s close associates – and some brutal revenge. There is also his disillusioned daughter, her boyfriend, drugs, emotional…
But, the uninvited of the title is an older widow, played by veteran Filipino star, Vilma Santos. And she plays her role intently and intensely.
She comes to the party, a false name, lavishly dressed, moving amongst the guests, encountering the daughter and making a bond with her, observing all the guests, a discussion with the wife, but all the time seeking an opportunity to kill the guest of honour.
With flashbacks, her background stories filled in, her love for her daughter, her daughter with a boyfriend, happy home life, but then the two abducted by the businessman’s callous thugs, the boyfriend tortured then killed, the daughter raped by the businessman and then his henchman, their bodies discarded.
While the framework is the party and the search for opportunity to kill the businessman, there are graphic flashbacks to the story, sympathy for the young girl, her boyfriend, their friends, caught up in the ugliness of human trafficking and abuse.
There are also interludes with the guest of honour in his room, boasting, or sexual liaisons, the public face and smiling for his guests, the singing Happy Birthday, basking the reality of his evil.
And, as expected, final comeuppance.