Raging Grace

When I sat down to watch the 2023 movie "Raging Grace", I thought I was in for a horror movie. Truth be told, I had never actually heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it, but the synopsis sounded interesting enough, and it was labelled as a horror movie. So of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

The storyline and narrative in "Raging Grace" was a bit of a swing and a miss. Sure, there were things in the script that seemed interesting enough, but the overall impression that director Paris Zarcilla left me with throughout the course of the 99 minutes that the movie ran for was a bland one.

There wasn't a whole lot happening throughout the course of the movie, and you need to go about 75 minutes into the movie before things actually start to take off. But nothing ever really happens, and the movie doesn't really take off. It was a rather anti-climatic viewing experience.

Writers Pancake Zarcilla and Paris Zarcilla didn't impress me with this 2023 movie. And it is a movie that will just quietly fade into oblivion and obscurity, because this is not a movie that will grace my screen a second time.

It was not because of the acting performances, not at all. Because the acting performances in the movie were good, and they definitely had some good actresses and actors on the cast list. I wasn't familiar with leading actress Max Eigenmann (playing Joy), but she really carried the movie quite nicely. And it certainly was nice to see actor David Hayman on the screen in his particular role and character.

"Raging Grace" is more of a thriller mystery than a horror movie. But calling it a thriller is actually stretching it a bit as well.

My rating of "Raging Grace" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

My initial sense of wonder was concerning its title: Raging Grace. Why Raging Grace? Why NOT Raging Joy (sounds like a paradox in itself)? Joy is, whom we're made to believe, the protagonist of this story. And for the most part, she is. An illegal Filipina immigrant in the UK who works mostly as a caretaker (slash) house-help, Joy's story has several layers. For starters, she's also a single mother, and the father of her child is shown to be an abusive employer. Joy (Max Eigenmann) and her daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla) have secrets of their own. Sometimes, Joy sneaks Grace into her employers' homes when they're away. Joy is trying to become documented, and she has to pay off a reasonably large sum of money to get this done. Joy and Grace switch between English and Tagalog while conversing. Joy's discomfort of being looked down upon by rich British employers and frequently addressed using the wrong terms ("you people!") is evident early on.

When Joy lands a job as a housekeeper at a mansion with an old man in a coma and her niece, she sees it as an opportunity to come clean and eventually secure their own place of residence. The setup is ripe. The performances are riveting. The film seamlessly moves into its second act, where what begins as a fairly straightforward set of tasks for Joy, slowly builds suspense, and inadvertently, a sense of psychological horror. The house harbors even bigger secrets, and they start to unfurl one after the other. Some of the plot developments seem predictable, but there's always a neat flow from scene to scene. Director Paris Zarcilla also crafts a tense little atmosphere within the house, and given that a large chunk of the film takes place inside of it, the filmmaker exhibits decent control over the staging of sequences.

The final act, while turning into a "who's the greater evil?" narrative, also reinstates why Grace is the film's protagonist. It's interesting, even if the proceedings lack the steam and momentum of the earlier acts. The "horror" then stops being subtle and suddenly becomes very in-your-face, very real. This does take away some of its storytelling glory, which otherwise, would've ended up being one of the smartest immigrant horror films in recent times.

A Filipina immigrant woman named Joy (Max Eigenmann) ekes out a living in empty apartments with her daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla) in England, where she works as a cleaner. One day, a chance encounter leads her to a mansion where she is hired by a strange woman (Leanne Best) to care for a dying elderly man (David Hayman). This seemingly good job eventually turns into a nightmare when she begins to discover the bizarre secrets hidden in the house and its inhabitants. The dark discovery threatens to destroy everything she's strived for and holds dear. A coming of rage film !.

Gothic horror and social drama come together in this film, winner of the Audience Award, the Young Jury Award, and the International Critics' Award at the Neuchâtel Fantastic Film Festival, as well as the Grand Jury Prize at South by Southwest.

An unacceptable horror film that mixes social drama, fantasy, surreal moments, twists, turns and chilling events. The cast is mostly unknown, except for veteran David Hayman, who gives a fine performance, already proven in his many other British films. David Hayman is a veteran secondary actor with a long career, an actor and director who studied at the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, being especially known for Sid and Nancy (1986), Rob Roy (1995), The Jackal (1997), Flood (2007), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008), The Hollow Crown (2012), Burke and Hare (2010) Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), Macbeth (2015), Viceroy's House (2017), Fisherman's Friends (2019), among others. The real protagonist is Max Eigenmann giving a fine performance as a hopeless, undocumented Filipina who survives as best she can in England and who lands a job as a care-worker for a terminal old man, securing a better life for her as well a her daughter. The latter is Jaeden Paige Boadilla, who despite her young age and being new to the acting field, she provides a very good and likeable performance.

¨Raging Grace¨ (2023) is the directorial debut of Anglo-Filipino Paris Zarcilla, and being inspired by the Roald Dahl story Matilda. The filmmaker opted for a mix of genres, ranging from horror to sociopolitical thriller, to tell a twisted story inspired by his own experience of the condescension, exploitation, and oppression faced by undocumented immigrants, always under the thumb of employers who consider themselves superior to them because of their bank balance or their skin color. Rating: 5.5/10. Acceptable and passable, the film will appeal to horror genre enthusiasts.

I'm pretty picky about the films I like. I found this to be very original, interesting and somewhat believable. Perhaps some folks didn't like the illegal immigrant prevailing.......

The story of an illegal Filipino immigrant with a young daughter, other than the details of their home country and family, is all too familiar. As Gloria, the protagonist says: "We care for you when you're dying" as well as all of the other things like cooking, cleaning, assisting in intimate bathroom duties. Some readers will say, "Oh, I don't have anyone like that to take care of me". Think again about that Honduran roofer who stayed on your job from morning to night. Your Mexican yardman who does a far better job and cheaper than the "legal" services. Americans like to reap the benefits from illegals, yet they're ready to "build that wall". Make up your damned mind.

I see a lot of people missing the point of the film by saying it disregards the topic of immigration. The director, Paris Zarcilla choose the horror genre having this issue in mind and in his heritage. There's a delightful play with tempo and rhythm in the film, as well as many details that have been carefully though of. The camerawork and editing give the movie a quality that is normally found in productions with larger budgets. It refuses to be a simple informative film about the topic of immigration that can be easily consumed, but rather opts for sudden jumpscares to allow the audience to feel the fright and uneasy situations immigrants have to go through. It reaches a subjective level and also has some beautifully symmetrical arrangements that give for a film with a couple of plot-twists.