"Remittance" Review - Macon Film Festival (***)

Angela Barotia stars in "Remittance."

In her time as a domestic worker in Singapore, Marie Delacruz jumps through hoops to please her host family. Risking her position as a maid, she finds alternate ways of making money, such as doubling as a 'bar girl.' She soon discovers that the money she sends home has been spent by her husband’s frivolous hand.

"Remittance" is good. It doesn’t soar to new heights, but it addresses a social matter in a beautiful light, and I was pleasantly surprised. Would I watch it again? Likely not. Would I recommend others see it? It is a beautiful telling of the misfortune many women in today’s world face; being relocated and struggling to raise money for their families back home, so it’s worth a view. I went in with low expectations, feeling the story may be slow and predictable, but was shocked time and again by becoming so actively invested in the outcome of these women’s lives.

However soul-baring the movie may be, it is not for the light-hearted and faces harsh realities with an ending that may leave viewers unsatisfied. Many cuts in the film are drawn out with no explanation, and some of the characters introduced earlier simply fall out of the story line. At the end of the day, it’s a realistic portrait of life. People come and go—as do the struggles we face day to day—but family is always there.

3 out of 5 stars.

“Remittance” screened at the 2016 Atlanta Film Festival and is set to screen at the 2016 Macon Film Festival on Friday, July 22 at 3:00 PM and Saturday, July 23 at 11:45 AM.