E-Mail This Article to a Friend WRETCHED LIVES

Philippine director Joel Lamangan’s film lives up to its title. Take pretty young Vanessa (Assunta de Rossi), for example. A cosmetician, she seems to be having a good time smooching with her lunkish (all the men in this film are pigs, with the exception of the ineffectual Dr. Delgado) boyfriend Oliver (Wendell Ramos), but as soon as she steps out of his cab into the rain, she finds the cops are raiding the neighborhood for terrorists. Her mother is killed, and Vanessa is left with her nubile, mentally disabled sister Nika (Alessandra de Rossi) to care for. When a passing typhoon wipes out her house, she reluctantly takes shelter with Uno (Jay Manalo) — another pig, but seemingly more organized and responsible than Oliver. Lamangan crudely intercuts the resultant melodramatic and sordid shenanigans with the ongoing civil strife following the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada in 2001. Could the oft-abused Nika, encouraged by the local men to do anything for a hamburger, be a metaphor for the misled and manipulated poor of the Philippines? When Vanessa gets beaten up and raped for the third time, you have to wonder whether Lamangan isn’t guilty of a little exploitation himself. In Filipino with English subtitles. (102 minutes)