Customer Reviews

Closer to Home

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

CLOSER TO HOME is the product of writer/director Joseph Nobile who made this film in 1995 and is so committed to his work of love that he is still pounding the streets for an audience after ten years of festival awards and widely varying responses from the critics, both form the media and form the viewers. I think his fight is well worth his effort.

CLOSER TO HOME is in no way a highly polished, glitzy, Hollywood chick flick. This is not a film that leaves the audience whistling the credits tune while ambling out of the theater talking about fluff and superficial situations. This little two hour film may reference such hits a 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing' or 'Madame Butterfly' or 'Sayonara', but the references are only to the ages old concept of the mail order bride market. Joseph Nobile has the courage to move beyond the pink bubbly dreams of love conquering all and instead examines the bipolar needs and inner histories of why the individuals on both ends of arranged marriages (especially those involving imported brides from poor countries) can encounter more tragedy than happy victories.

Nobile wisely divides his film between the Philippines and New York City, drawing many parallels between the monetary poverty of the one with the emotional poverty of the other. He opens up the atmosphere of the Philippines by allowing us to see the various strata of life from the bars, the streets of Manila, the factories, the farms still employing carabao to work the meager fields. From this palette he plucks one beautiful young girl Dalisay (Madeline Ortaliz) and explains why her need to provide for her family and her young sister in need of cardiac surgery instills the drive to go to America to find a husband and requisite funds to send money home. After the difficult task of convincing her family that her departure is a sound solution to the family's financial needs, she consents to be a mail order bride, follows the disparate regulations and problems of obtaining a Visa and departs her beloved family for the promise of the American Dream.

Meanwhile, in New York, we meet Dean (John Michael Bolger), an ex-Merchant Marine who tasted the flavor of the East and longs for a Filipina bride to fill the vacuum of not having grown up with an intact family. His sister and friends are angered that Dean will not sell the family flat, a move that would provide financial escape from their lives of loneliness and disenchantment with their lack of meaningful family history. Dean sees importing Dalisay as his bride will provide him with all of the love his dissolute life has eschewed.

Dalisay arrives in the US, tries to uphold her wobbly dreams, but eventually must accept the fact that she does not love the intended destitute groom and must forge her own life to fulfill her commitment to her family. Dean is crushed by the failure of this ultimate dream but out of the chards of his ideals he finds a semblance of family after all.

This films is not without flaws: though the photography is beautiful in places it is poorly choreographed in others, making extended scenes of dialogue feel more like a ping pong game than a creative exploration of character. Some judicious editing would tighten the drama and while that may exclude some of the characters in the drama, it would make the focus stronger. The actors vary greatly in credibility and the 'at will' interchange between Tagalog and English can become distracting.

But in the long run, CLOSER TO HOME is an important alternative view of the American Dream and a forceful and thoughtful one at that. It is a film that if taken for its message is a film to remember and cause reflection on the daily interpersonal tragedies that can become too easily ignored in this busy world we have created. Grady Harp, March 05

Much of the effectiveness of this deeply affecting and ultimately tragic film is due to what is not shown and what is not said.

Dalisay (Madeline Ortaliz) is a young and pretty Filipino girl who--perhaps among other strategies--puts herself up as a mail order bride in order to get to America to make money to help her family and get medical help for her younger sister who has a heart condition. Maybe that is her motivation. What makes this movie so beguiling and intriguing is the ambiguous nature of Dalisay's desire. She is a "good girl, a proper girl but...(I am reminded of an old song)...one of the roving kind."

She tells her family that she will work in America and send them money. She doesn't tell them that she is a mail order bride. This is the essential duplicity that Dalisay enters into. She has a cousin in America who will help her with the details. Perhaps this is planned. We really don't know. Perhaps she is waiting until she sees her intended and will play it by ear from there. Again, the ambiguity of her desire--and indeed the ambiguity of anyone's desire, especially that of a young girl from a poor rural family in a poor country who has been making her living sewing clothes in a sweat shop--is what intrigues us. No one's motives are completely pristine. There is always an element of self-service involved, even in the most humanitarian ventures, even if it is only that of being the one who is doing good. Dalisay is being good, but one gets the sense as the film develops that she is being good partially for Dalisay. She has seen what it is like to work in a sweat shop and she has seen what happens to the girls who give their bodies away. She is wiser than that. She has a plan.

Director Joseph Nobile who co-wrote the script with Ruben Arthur Nicdao overplays the idyllic rural setting in the early scenes--the good father and family, their hard work, the happy, if poor, children, the bright and ambitious daughter in whom they believe. They are of course preyed upon by middle men and money lenders, but they hold their heads high. I think Nobile would have been wise to cut out about half of these opening sequences in the Philippines because they are too cloying, they too much recall the cliches of the good and noble peasants being used by the evil power structure.

However, there is something to be said for the build up. We do see that although Dalisay brings gifts to her siblings when she visits, and she seems delighted to see the children run alongside the bus, there is some restraint in her affection, some slight distance from the little ones and from her father and mother. The family affection, although seemingly demonstrated, struck me as lukewarm. Perhaps that was the intent so as to account for Dalisay's leaving them.

The film begins slowly. I would have given up on it had I not known of the film's reputation. I stayed with it and I am glad I did because once Dalisay gets to America about halfway through, the story becomes riveting and develops into a powerful tragedy of conflicting desires, told in stark realism and beautifully acted by Ortaliz and John Michael Bolger who plays Dean.

He is one of live's pathetic losers who has a dream, an island girl of his own, to love him and to serve him and to be his wife and constitute the loving family that he doesn't have. Ah, but the intrusion of reality! We see that although Dalisay is good and non-exploitive herself, she has her own dreams and they are not likely to include an over-the-hill, broken-down and drunken cabbie, a guy with a dysfunctional family, a guy who can't keep a job and wears too much cologne. When he says he loves her we know there is no way she can say she loves him.

An important scene that foreshadows the end catches Dalisay and her cousin Tess at the kitchen table in the apartment. They are joking in Tagalog about Dean's physical attributes. We can see how cozy they are, the two women in their shared culture, and how alien Dean is as he comes upon them and doesn't understand what they are saying. Ultimately we feel sorry for Dean. We pity him. Yet we understand and appreciate Dalisay's decision. She does what she has to do, and she does it with dignity and honor.

A final point: When Dean is seen crying near the end, we the viewers know why he is crying, but his family does not. For the audience the tears are ambiguous and his tragedy is twofold, just as Dalisay's motivations are ambiguous and twofold.

This is very close to masterpiece. It is original and faithfully done without choosing sides or assigning blame one way or the other. Like a Greek tragedy, the end is fated and due to human frailty rather than any conscious iniquity.

Finally, an award winning movie that realistically shows life in rural Philippines. See the daily life of a small town family. Their relationships, hardships and joys. See their home, their town and the countryside with over 25 Philippines' locations included.

Then see how and why this pretty Filipina teenager meets an older American man, their courtship, and how she copes with the USA culture shock the first few months after she arrives in the USA.

Closer to Home is a 2 hour high quality DVD movie with an interestering story as well as much about life in small towns in Philippines. I highly recommend it because it exists. I am sure Mr. Nobile worked very hard against difficult barriers to make this movie.

I wish story was more realistic to today's foreign romance events and had a happier ending, but that movie exists only in my, and tens of thousands of others, imagination. Or, in the memory of the thousands that have lived it. Mostly, happy memories I am sure! Jean

@^:^@

Filipino movies are expensive to buy and this one is no exception. It is worth the price of admission though. This movie starts out in a factory in the Philippines were a young filipino women makes her living. The factory is bright and colorful and soon we learn that the people are colorful also. But the people are poor and we soon find out the girl in the factory has a little sister that will die if they do not come up with the money for an operation. So along the way we learn that she has decided to go to america so she can earn the money for her sister.

From the factory the girl goes to a bar. We start to see the bar girls and what life is like for them. We meet the man who runs the bar. He offers her a job in Japan but she is told that from time to time she will have sex with the men. She wants to go to american so he tells her that he will help her to get a visa. Next we find out that in order to get the visa she either has to have sex with him, or she has to come up with money to pay him for his service. "Agencys" like this are common in the Philippines and we begin to see how business is done in the bars and what you can expect if you go to them for help.

Next the women goes home to talk to her parents. We really start to see what life is like in the Philippines now. Her father has two carabao and he is out in the water plowing up the ground for rice. We see the nippa hut they live in, make out of nippa or bamboo with a grass roof. We see her family and her little sister who needs the operation. Then we see as she goes with her dad to the money lenders. She needs the money to pay the agency and the first lender turns her down because he is afraid the agency will steal her money and not get her the visa to go to america. The father already owes that money lender 80% of his crop that will not come in for four more months. The second lender has no problem with his conscious, the price is 10% interest per month, to be paid each and every month, and the father must put up his house, land, and carabao to secure the loan. Even they are poor and so far in debt, they are still a happy family, that enjoys being with each other.

This is all I am going to comment on, because when she gets to american I do not think the film is very accurate on the way Filipino brides are who come to American. My wife is filipino and she was upset by this and she kept saying: "her cousin is corrupting her, the cousin is corrupting her". It is a shame that they just do not understand the Filipino women and try to show them the way that they do.

This movie could have been a epic, but they totally miss what filipino women are all about. Yes they love their family and make great sacrifice for their family. But her husband is important to her to and the family she makes for herself is important. Of course in the movie they never get married which just makes it look like she is using him and it is really a put down on asian women that they would show her the way that they do. He treats her good and love her. Most any filipino women would respond by loving him back and be happy that she has a husband who accepts her & the situation with her family.

Yes, they have family problems, she has the kind of problems that filipino familys have. He has the kind of problems that american familys have. In real life they would find a way to work it all out. I think it is a shame that this movie ends up with a sad ending and that you do not walk away from it feeling good about yourself and the world we live in. Epic movies need to show us how adversity can be overcome. That is why this movie falls way short of all it could be.

This film must have been written and directed by a Filipino. The parts in the first half set in the Philippines were beautifully photographed and interesting. The 2nd half is ridiculously melodramatic. If you enjoy identifying with a main character who deals with his problems by drinking and consorting with prostitutes, this movie is for you. And the resolution is completely unsatisfying. The filmmakers think it addresses each character's true needs, it doesn't. It's more a Filipino fantasy based on a lack of understanding of immigration laws in the US. The girl would not be allowed to come to the US if the guy had not already met her in person. She and a cousin evidently came to the US on fiancé visas (all this is glossed over in the movie). With this type of visa they, and everyone else, understands they're here to get married within 90 days to their fiancé and ONLY to their fiancé. If they split on their fiancées, someone should just pick up the phone and call the proper authorities. Because they will be deported. Period.

The movie raises valid issues about inter-cultural "mail order" romances. For example, the guy was looking abroad for family to avoid dealing with his actual family. However, the movie strikes me as a Filipino fantasy. The girl can have what she and the filmmakers really want - the ability for her to live in the US and make money to send home without having to marry an American. Glossed over with the immigration laws is the fact that the supposedly innocent Filipina has in fact defrauded her fiancé. She came here with an understanding and violated it. The terrible economic plight in the Philippines does, in fact, drive many Filipinas to marry abroad. This must be a real source of frustration for Filipinos. So, here we get some wish fulfillment from their perspective: The oh-so-virtuous girl gets access to the US and its money without having to actually give herself away in marriage. I doubt Filipinas who marry abroad in reality are like the girl in this movie. I think they also seek to go abroad because they have the idea that Western husbands are superior to what they can get at home. More faithful, caring, etc. Not just more money. But having something like that in the movie would interfere with its Filipino fantasy.

In summary, the first part is interesting but the movie as a whole is just a big downer.

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To address Mr. Lopez's subsequent review and his cavalier attitude towards our immigration laws, dealing with the BICS (formerly INS) with "mail order brides" is not the walk in the park he thinks. The girl must go through a tough interview at the American embassy and there must be proof the couple actually know about each other and have actually met. The 2 in the movie never even talked on a telephone. And who knows what they actually wrote in their letters. This is all glossed over YET their expectations are crucial to the setup of the story.

If the director is in fact an American he nevertheless is ignorant of his own country's laws and he markets his films to the Philippines.

As for blaming the problems on the girl, please show me where I (or DGREEN for that matter) have done that. The claim being made by me is that this supposedly honorable girl stiffed her fiancé, and the agreement she made to get into the country, as soon as she found a better opportunity. The money problem was addressed but she just bailed out anyway. And unlike a citizen, that's not her option. "Circumstances after her arrival lead her to rethink her plan" is a classy way to say as soon as she found something more convenient she reneged, defrauding the guy and this country. Oh but I forget, the cavalier approach to laws and promises is just fine when you're the one doing the defrauding. ... And when everyone here adopts that approach, our women will be emigrating overseas for a better life. Because we will have killed the golden goose and this country will also be too corrupt to have a workable economy.

A likely coda to the ending is the guy's cousin picks up a phone and calls BICS ... and her career in this country is history... It's not like she can't be found (unlike other illegals who skip out on their visas). She's at her cousin's restaurant. Which will likely mean adios for the cousin, too.

I agree with all the points in the reviews of Mr. Lopez and DGreen about the dysfunctional guy. He learns a lot and is certainly to be pitied. The girl on the other hand learns to adopt his approach to life and responsibility: Skip out. And she falls in with her amoral cousin. For her, that's not too hopeful. It's a downer.

"Closer to Home" keeps getting labeled a "green card" romance, but that is an inadequate encapsulation of what happens in this 1995 film. The person in quest of a visa to the United States is Dalisay (Madeline Ortaliz), the young daughter of a Filipino family. Her younger sister needs an operation, so Dalisay wants to go the U.S. she can work to earn enough money to pay for the surgery. To accomplish this Dalisay signs up to become a mail-order bride. Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean (John Michael Bolger), has had enough of the merchant marine and wants to have a permanent home and a family not that he is reaching middle age. The permanent home becomes his late mother's apartment, to the distress of his sister, Jan (Jane Gabbert), who was counting on selling it, and the family comes from picking Dalisay as his future bride.

The key to this film is that Dalisay and Dean are nowhere close to being together by the end of the first reel. Dalisay and her father have to explore several options to getting the money she needs for the trip, which includes dealing with loan sharks and other avenues of exploitation, and Dean is trying to keep his life together, working as a cab driver when he is not fighting with his family. The more they learn about Dean's plans, the less they like them, and by the time Dalisay shows up she is not exactly welcomed with open arms. Whatever she was thinking living in the United States would be like, this would not be it. Clearly, buying into the American dream is not as easy as you would think, whether you are an immigrant or a native son.

The portrait of the Philippines culture seems to have more depth, but that could be because the other half of the film showing a family falling apart in New York City is more familiar territory. Yet the interplay between the two cultures is at the heart of "Closer to Home," and this is one of those films that is worth watching at least one more time in order to reconsider what it all means in the end. There is a certain rawness to the film, which reinforces the gritty reality of the circumstances of the main characters. Dean is a flawed human being, quick to anger and on some level aware that he lacks the social skills necessary to make a relationship work, even one in which he pays for a willing bride. Likewise, Dalisay, is not only understandably naive about what life is going to be like in America, we are not absolutely convinced she can survive. A happy ending is not inevitable in this film because neither simply wanting the American dream nor trying to buy it assures you of success.

I understand that this movie will have more of an impact for a Filipino audience than for American viewers, but there is still considerable resonance from the latter perspective as well. This is due primarily to Bolger's performance, because we want Dean to achieve his dream if for no other reason than that endorsing it for him endorses it for everyone. Even as we are confronted with Dean's failings, our sympathies are still drawn to the character and since they are also with Dalisay and her plight a tension develops between the pair. We know that we are rooting for both of them, but does that mean we want them to end up together? This is not a predictable film, which is why calling it a "green card" romance totally misses the boat.

This movie is in English and Tagalog with English subtitles, but you have to turn on the subtitles on the DVD. I did not figure this out so I actually watched it the first time without the subtitles, which was rather interesting because I certainly understood the gist of what was going on even if the specific details regarding how Dalisay's family was going to get the money to get her Visa were beyond my understanding. I have seen a couple of films where the two main characters only speak their native tongues without subtitles for the "other" language (i.e., the non-English one), and I just assumed "Closer to Home" was another such film.

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What happens when an ''immovable object'' meets an ''irresistible force''?

The ''immovable object'' in this case is a former merchant marine who has returned home after an absence of about two decades and is now determined to remain in the building which once belonged to his now deceased parents and is now in the possession of his sister who is hoping to sell the place to a cousin who runs a small business in the street-level portion of the building. The prodigal brother's refusal to leave disrupts everyone's plans. He hopes to further cement his foothold on the family home by getting married and starting a family of his own, and he chooses to go about this by utilizing a ''mail-order bride'' service.

The Filipina ''picture bride'' he selects is the ''irresistible force'' of the story -- a simple ''country girl'' working in the city of Manila who hopes to work in America so she can earn enough money to pay for a lifesaving operation for her sick & dying little sister, because her father is a struggling farmer who earns too little to pay for the costly medical procedure. Through lying & deception (though not out of maliciousness, but because she believes that the ''honorable'' end she hopes to achieve justifies the ''dishonorable'' means) she forces her father into crushing debt in order to secure her travel documents from the unscrupulous owner of a topless bar who acts as a middleman. Even after the girl's arrival to the ''Big Apple,'' she continues with the deceptions.

Although it is not really her desire to marry the lonesome bachelor who is about twice her age, she seems to give indication that she wishes to live up to the ''promise'' to which she agreed, which she claimed (but never admitted to her mother and father) was her basis for coming to the States. Her "obligations," if you will, get seriously put to the test when a materialistic cousin who also lives in New York City (who likewise came to the U.S. as a ''mail-order bride'' who then ditched the ''Average Joe'' American she was expected to marry for a more entrepreneurial & less ''traditional family values'' beau) pays her a visit and begins filling the young girl's head with the idea that she is not doing nearly as well for herself as she ''could'' be doing, thus setting the stage for even greater disaster in the girl's wake.

With everything to lose, the former seaman's only friend & shoulder of support is an aged uncle who lives in the uppermost portion of the building who likewise wishes to stay put. Expected to "die" in Florida after the sale of the building has been finalized, the uncle sees his ability to continue living in the old family home as being dependent on the success of the marriage of the new couple.

Showing how even the best of intentions can lead to major family crisis, "Closer to Home" is simultaneously very beautiful & inspiring and very discomforting & depressing.

It also explores how attitudes towards "money"-- both amongst those who have it and those who desperately need it --motivate people to believe certain things about and behave certain ways toward those in our 'spheres of influence.' Ultimately, with all of the other questions about 'culture' and 'ethics' placed aside, I think this is perhaps the true underlying theme of the movie. -- And what a strong theme it is.

I got this as a gift for my Philippine girlfriend. She had told me that a lot of Philippine movies are "a bit corny". However, she loved this film, and said that it was very realistic!
I have bought her a lot of films as gifts - many of which she has enjoyed. However, this is the first film with Philippine content which she thought was very realistic. (She also loaned it to a friend of her's - also a Filipina - who cried because of the accuracy.) We all thought the island scenery was beautiful; and all rated it excellent!

There is a growing business of mail order brides where companies advertise women to men who seek a life partner. The film Close to Home turns out to be a rather intriguing tale of a mail order bride, as it thoroughly depicts both sides of the issue. The story displays the man, Dean (John Michael Bolger), who seeks a woman and his status in society while the audience gets to explore the woman's socioeconomic position. Initially, it seems as if Dean seeks someone out of his league, as he seeks someone beautiful, younger and obedient. Through the mail order bride service Dean finds such a woman, Dalisay (Madeline Ortaliz), while thumbing through a large a quantity of photos. According to Dean, Dalisay does not look like a bar girl, as she seems to be young, pretty and neat.

Dalisay seeks an opportunity for a better financial life, as she desires to advance on the social ladder for her family's sake. As the film unfolds the audience will find out that the street smart Dalisay is from a poor family and her sister is in dire need to have a surgery in order to save her life. The writer and director Joseph Nobile adds extra layers of human complexity to the film by presenting these problems that she has at home and at work to explains why she is willing to get married to a stranger. Through Dalisay's problems the audience will experience a thoughtful story that will have genuine emotions, as her and her family's socioeconomic status provides a strong enough argument for why she is deciding to travel to United States.

Dean, on the other hand, is a broke dreamy romantic that seems to believe that marrying a woman and moving into the family apartment will solve all his problems. The dreamy hopes that Dean has for the future do not rest within a well thought out and organized plan, as he merely seems to believe that a woman will remove all of his problems, while his sister wants to sell the apartment where he lives to their brother-in-law. Yet, Dean does not want to sell, or cooperate with the family, as he wanders down his own path of self-destruction. This part of the film sometimes borderlines with soap opera-like melodrama, as Dean appears too simplistic in contrast to Dalisay. The contrasts will be boosted when Dalisay arrives to the United States, as her personal strength for survival makes Dean simply look like a loser.

Closer to Home has a strong foundation, as it offers an original story told from two very different angles. The allocated shooting budget should also be taken into consideration, as it was far less than any big blockbuster. Nonetheless, the Achilles' heel of the film seems to rest within the cast, as some characters provide a solid performance while others do not seem to be in character. This definitely hurts the strong message that the film tries to deliver, as it removes the attention from the story and instead directs it toward the flaws. Yet, some cinematic highlights such as when Dalisay walks on glass provide occasional cinematic inspiration of genius while the content provides some intriguing contemplation.

What a malicious, vicious movie. It revels in crushing and demeaning some poor, lonely misfit who reaches out for love in the only way he knows how. The filmmakers take sadistic joy in endlessly drawing out this character's downfall. I kept watching till the end thinking things would turn around. They never did. I can't recall when I hated a movie so much. What is the point of this movie and watching some poor character endlessly lose? Do yourself a favor and save your money and your time for something that won't anger you. This movie made me so angry I was compelled to write this review. Why do I even have to give this movie one star?