When
Closer to Home was released in the Philippines, the critical reaction was positive.
Nestor Torre Jr., a film critic known for his long-running "Viewfinder" column in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, lauded the film and its message in his review. He wrote, "Filmmaker Joseph Nobile has hit upon a creative and rewarding juxtaposition of two cultures, two families and two interesting individuals...The film's title says it all: the movie is about the characters' contrasting attitudes toward the concept of
home. ...On point of performance,
John Michael Bolger dominates the film with his complex characterization of Dean. Madeline Ortaliz is well-cast on point of dusky looks and modest ways, and she does have several affecting scenes ... On the whole, though, we're glad we saw this film because it gives us a new look at the Filipino-American relationship on personal, familial and cross-cultural levels. Since America and Western culture play such a big role in our lives, whether we're aware of it or not, and whether we like it or not, viewing the movie can result in reflections that can help clarify that relationship for us. Patience is needed, however, to give the film time to get its story going, and its valuable points, and finally come into its own". Writing for
Malaya (newspaper), film critic Ethel Ramos, Filipino columnist of "STUDIO WHISPERS" said, 'How sad that a foreign director (Joseph Nobile) had to open our eyes to the beauty of our surroundings.' "I agree with fellow movie columnist George Vail Kabristante that Elibon Film Productions' Closer to Home is a film every Filipino director should take time to watch. It is not only well-crafted (although "tighter" editing could make the film more exciting), it will also make people realize there's so much beauty in our countryside. How sad that a foreign director (Joseph Nobile) should open our eyes to the beauty of our surroundings. Indeed, there is still so much, especially in our barrios, that the government, it's officials and private contracters have yet to explore. Closer to Home is a quiet movie. Yet every scene is so beautifully, so convincingly and honestly presented one cannot help but be touched. The film reflects issues affecting Filipinas today. It shows how wrong Filipinas are in thinking America is the land of milk and honey. And that marrying an American is a dream come true."
Ricky Lo, Entertainment Editor of
The Philippine Star wrote in his long-running column "FunFare", "Pinoys in the eyes of a foreign director", "...A film called Closer to Home by independent American filmmaker Joseph Nobile (it's his 'debut' movie) is bound to make heads turn and touch a lot of Filipino hearts. I saw a preview of Closer to Home one stormy afternoon at the
Mowelfund Center and I was impressed by Nobile's ability to capture the sensibility of the Filipino in the tightly edited and finely-acted drama about a Filipina (played by newcomer Madeline Ortaliz, a cross between Princess Punzalan and Cecile Castillo, who was discovered during an audition of more than 200 aspirants)... Done in a span of four years (lack of logistics, you know), Closer to Home should be seen not only by Filipino filmmakers who must have become so accustomed to things and places 'local' that they take certain details for granted and therefore don't portray Filipino-ness as faithfully as it is done by, irony of ironies, this American who must have been a Filipino in his previous life."
Abante film critic
Billy Balbastro wrote in his popular column, "Take Billy", "The Great American Dream, From
Lino Brocka's 'Hellow, Soldier' and 'PX' to Joseph Nobile's 'Closer to Home', the American dream remains the same!" "We pay tribute to Nobile who catches the pathos, the humor in the midst of poverty, the beauty in simple lives. As he follows the story of factory worker Dalisay (commendably portrayed by first timer Madeline Ortaliz, 19 of New Era U.) and how her father (
Joonee Gamboa) moves heaven and earth to send her to America, we also take in a former Merchant Marine, dogged by his family to sell their house, hoping to make a match through a marriage bureau...Nobile's story is lucid; its cinematography, superb; the movie as a whole, well-acted and deftly-crafted. I especially like the fast-paced noisy beginning (the Pahiyas in Lucban) and the slow, eloquent pathetic, silent ending in contrast." In November 1999, after the film finished its long festival run and had its theatrical release in the Philippines, Balbastro followed up in his "Take Billy" column by writing, "Finally, 'Closer to Home' comes home!" "Sometime in 1995, we wrote in glowing terms as a way of encouragement about a quiet yet eloquent film done by an American filmmaker, Joseph Nobile, reflecting the Filipino's American dream. Well-crafted and well-acted, Closer to Home is a social drama filmed in the Philippines and in America about a Filipina mail-order bride. The Nobile movie mirrors the typical Filipino family's fantasy and illusion about America and Americans and the reality of life in the Big Apple to a young Filipina who tries to pursue her dream, but always with her family in the Philippines in mind...Closer to Home belongs to the first batch of 'wholesome, intelligent films' for the discriminating Filipino audience and here we can see ourselves in the eyes of an American who loves us. This column is our way of thanking, of paying tribute to director-producer Joseph Nobile who catches the pathos, the humor in the midst of poverty, the beauty in simple lives, ours. I'm sure he is more in love with us and our people than we are with him. Thank you, Joseph, for Closer to Home." Film critic Gibbs Cadiz, reviewing for
The Manila Times, wrote"...Nobile, a US-based director, has crafted a no-frills but enormously appealing film, thanks to its emotionally resonant subject matter ( a mail-order marriage between an impoverished Pinay and a disaffected, rootless American fortysomething), the largely unknown cast's overall competence, and the director's apparent compassion for and understanding of his characters, whether Pinoy or not...For a while, Closer to Home teeters on the edge of cliche in delineating one more tale of a cross-cultural romance gone sour (some of the characters' names-Dalisay, Luningning-betray a whiff of romanticized nostalgia for the Amorsoloesque Philippine countryside of old), but Nobile knows how to pull his punches...In fact, what's remarkable about Nobile's film is how it manages to be affecting without being melodramatic...This is refreshing filmmaking".
Lourd de Veyra in his film review for Today's Weekender Newspaper wrote, " 'Home' is Where the Art is...NEWCOMER WITH A DRAMATIC ENTRY-Virtual unknown Madeline Ortaliz, then 19 years old, delivers a searing dramatic performance." "Think about it. Why hasn't anybody thought of a story like Closer to Home? The plot is simple, but it's something that is very real to a lot of Filipino-families: poor girl from the barrios goes to the States as a mail-order bride, but they don't get to live happily ever after. It took a foreigner to tackle the subject, an Italian-American director named Joseph Nobile. And he tackles it poignantly. This is a finely acted film, and Ortaliz is perfect for the role of an innocent, young and desperate probinsiyana. Ortaliz, then just 19 years of age, was picked from the 300-plus girls who auditioned. Nobile considered her long hair, dark, petite, morena features perfect for the role. One of Ortaliz's assets, however, is her eyes-the expressiveness of which would do any Ate Guy fan proud. "Bolger plays his character with brilliant understatement, and shows intensity toward the end. Director Nobile-who cowrote the screenplay along with Ruben Arthur Nicdao-knows when to pull back just when the narrative begins steering into melodramatic territory. Nobile's film offers no earthshaking element, which is precisely his point. This is a quiet movie, but the tension is palpable inside Dean's claustrophobic flat. It is small, dark and dingy; the silence punctured by the sound of the train passing by-a stark contrast to the wide verdant fields Dalisay had left. Also worth noting is Nobile's ear for Pinoy cultural sensibility-evident in certain provincial scenes. His camera seems to find wonder in ricefields, the picturesque ridges of Tagaytay, the coconut huskers, the carabaos plowing. One of the most effective scenes, however, is the jeepney ride taking Dalisay to the airport-unspoken feelings of mirth and sadness hang in the air, while strains of
Ryan Cayabyab's "Paraiso" play in the background".
Manila Bulletin Entertainment Editor Crispina Martinez-Belen wrote, " 'Closer to Home' is very
Filipino from whichever angle you look at it. It has, to my humble thinking, captured the Filipino heart and soul with its presentation of local colors and sentiments, in ways not forced but spontaneous."
Retrospective evaluation On the film's 30th anniversary, New York film critic Prairie Miller of the
New York Film Critics Online, (NYFCO), wrote, "Closer to Home: Looking For America Review - Class And Culture Conflict Revisited" "On this 30th Anniversary revisiting of the Joseph Nobile directed cross-cultural dramatic feature Closer To Home, there is rare welcome insight into diverse global perspectives beyond the usual Euro-centric world view that despite its three decades, sustains a scarce class conscious contemporary relevance...Filmed in part with a profound sense of genuinely conceived poverty and exploitation in the Philippines, the narrative follows Dalisay (16 year old Madeline Ortaliz when filming began) - a rural young woman who applies through a corrupt local agency to be selected as a US bound mail order bride, with the intent of being able to send money back to her impoverished family, and a sister in dire need of a operation they cannot afford...But expectations crumble at both ends - for Dalisay who imagines the US as a country ripe with financial opportunity - and Dean (
John Michael Bolger), the middle aged American who has essentially purchased her, and is himself barely making ends meet as a New York City cab driver. And with Dean idealizing Dalisay as a fantasy he cannot essentially satisfy, because he as well ironically buys into the national delusion that there is no such thing as class, in that false socio-economic notion of America... "And though the film presents an uncompromising, determined realistic portrait of the past crafted with unusual depth and stinging social complexity, a clash offscreen with the currently reality in this country is unavoidable - namely with this horrendous moment of US government propagated ICE violence against immigrants, that Dalisay's lack of papers would have more likely kept her under the protection of Dean merely for survival, however horrible and even perilous such an ultimately desperate decision might be." Eeya Litiatco-Martin writing in
The Philippine Star said, "Closer To Home brings to light a phenomenon most often looked upon with a jaundiced eye, not because of the element of ordinariness that somehow has leeched on to it, but because this portrait of a third world’s social dysfunction (not unique to the Philippines, the situation is replicated in third world countries) has been relatively ignored by various political leaderships and administrations — and worst, largely accepted with disdain and cynical resignation as an unpleasant fact of life. "It is a riveting film touching on the convoluted evils created by society’s imbalances and the cross-cultural differences of two worlds. An exposition of two societies, two disparate yet similar families, two deeply-feeling contrary personalities with totally contrasting ideas of what “family” should constitute, the film — about a loving Filipino family (Dalisay's) held hostage by poverty and social inequality and at the mercy of centuries-old feudal-type (in)justice — is set in an idyllic third world countryside juxtaposed against the first-world's own unsettling enigma and communal dysfunction (equally regarded with cryptic cynicism in the “land of milk and honey”) and represented by a lower-middle class New York family (Dean's), where relationships (in sharp contrast to Dalisay's family) have been soured by acrimony, bitter jealousies and deeply-rooted resentment. While Dean's messianic hope for love comes in the form of a mail-order bride, Dalisay sees the much-older Dean as a passage to the land that holds the key to her younger sister's survival. (Luningning, the sister, has a congenital heart problem and needs urgent surgery). And while the conflict stems from mutual ideals — Dean pining for the gratification of love and family, Dalisay embodying its sacrificial aspect — the struggle and conflict of the two main characters put together by the transaction and tyranny of love materialize into a crisis. Consequently, the film stirs confusion as the viewer is left to empathize with both characters who assume the dichotomous roles of both hero and villain. Almost immediately, the perceptive viewer realizes that both are at odds with society at large and are inevitable victims of an oppressive state of existence. What is especially notable is the remarkable feat of how the director has added depth to the universal concepts of hope, love and family..." Reviewing for the
Manila Bulletin's USA Edition, film critic Raffy Espiritu wrote, "Cinéma Vérité - 'Independent cinema gets a refreshing new addition." "...While the idea of a 'green card' romance is not uncommon, Nobile's brand of attention on the provincial Dalisay and her Brooklyn-bred suitor gives the concept a fresh, if almost voyeuristic feel. The audience is not only treated to the pair's burgeoning relationship, but is also given a peek into their lives before this relationship even takes place. In fact, half the film is spent setting up the meeting between the two. While this may initially seem to detract from the formula of a fish-out-of-water romance, it also makes abundantly clear the point of the film isn't the young couple, but rather the dream that has brought both of them together. Also, unlike the few jabs Hollywood has taken on the genre, 'Closer to Home' chooses to remain grounded in reality and eschews the general 'love conquers all' ideal for one that may disappoint those looking for that sloppy kiss at the end of the rainbow. I, for one, am thankful that this story doesn't completely try to sugarcoat the issue (despite the impressively virginal Dalisay character), and that is already strong grounds for recommending this feature. "That said, the film does occasionally suffer from the typical faults of independent cinema: The experience is sometimes interrupted by awkward shot positioning and some abrupt editing. In addition, the film's score, provided by noted Philippine musical artist/composer
Ryan Cayabyab, is a disappointing collection of predictable string orchestrations and B-side melodies that do little but detract from the movie's immersion (at least for this reviewer). Taking all into consideration, these issues are minor in light of what has been achieved in 'Closer to Home'. While much can still be said in recognition of the film's casting and social significance, these are, undoubtedly, just another part of a film which, with its true-to-life feel and uncompromising conclusion, accomplishes what many movies fail to do: Create a believable world with believable characters." Playback:stl film critic Sarah Boslaugh wrote in her review... "Closer to Home is the kind of film that makes me rejoice that I live in the age of the DVD. It's a quintessential festival film (and in fact appeared in over 30 film festivals around the world ca. 1995) that doesn't have the broad-based appeal necessary for a strong theatrical run, yet will be of interest to a substantial number of viewers. Thanks to our technologically-enlightened times you can watch it at home, and as this film has something of the feel of a television movie already it looks perfectly fine on the small screen". ==See also==