‘Balota’ review: Marian Rivera lends star power to educate voters

Marian Rivera in ‘Balota.’ Cinemalaya

Emmy Cortez (Marian Rivera) was a dedicated public school teacher. She had a teenage son Enzo (Will Ashley). Her best friend was her cousin Melissa (Sue Prado), who was the mother of Enzo’s best buddy Jimbo (Raheel Bhyria). It was election season, and in their town, the two candidates for mayor — incumbent mayor Elena Hidalgo (Mae Paner) and her rival Giancarlo Edraline (Gardo Versoza) — were going full tilt ahead with their campaigns.

On election day, Emmy served as one of the poll officials in their local precinct, and it went on generally without incident. When the ballot box was about to be delivered to the governor, Emmy volunteered for the job, and was accompanied by her crush Teacher Waks (Myke Salomon). Before they left, the ballot box was handcuffed to Emmy’s wrist as per tradition. What was supposed to have been a routine errand did not happen according to plan.

With “Balota,” writer-director Kip Oebanda boldly followed up the heavily-political footsteps of his only previous Cinemalaya entry — “Liway” (2018). There were already moments of violence at the start, with hitman Migs (Nico Antonio) doing his bloody jobs. Later, we see Emmy’s ordeal while chained to the ballot box, which was certainly dead serious. Oebanda judiciously inserted comic moments to break the tension, from playing FLAMES to jingle showdowns.

Several other people make Emmy’s neighborhood a more interesting to live in. Cross-dressing gay guys Babe (Sassa Gurl) and Erhmengard (Esmyr Ranollo) provide colorful LGBT rainbow. Beat partners Pastor (Joel Saracho) and Morales (Royce Cabrera) were in sharp good cop-bad cop contrast. Anita (Donna Cariaga) led a picket line to demand justice for her late husband who died along with 12 other co-workers several years back.

As expected, Marian Rivera was the star of the whole show and she literally went through the entire gamut of emotions her. In drama, she drew the audience into her precarious plight that put her family in danger, and her difficult dilemma about who she can trust. In comedy, Rivera’s Emmy can be sassy when she argued, or girly with her crush, and the audience enthusiastically laughed at all her zingers, from beginning to end.

Marian Rivera lends her superstar power to attract the fickle Filipino moviegoers to watch a film with an important advocacy to push. Year after year, Filipino citizens go through various elections of public officials. More frequent than not, the winners were those with the biggest bribes or the best name recall, and not the most capable nor the most honest. This film tells us to stop this ridiculous circus now, and vote seriously with only patriotism in mind.

This review was originally published in the author’s blog, “Fred Said.”