Ever since Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s extravagantly long Drive My Car waited until after its 40-minute prologue to hit the screen, its delayed title card drop has become emblematic of a sophisticated cinematic literary art film that works according to its own schedule and rulebook. But Isabel Sandoval’s new film Moonglow may have a shot at setting a new record, at least proportionally. As the title suggests, this 108-minute neo-noir clocks in at a whopping 49 minutes, flooding the screen with a luxuriously flowing script and not far from the halfway point. Such empathy could signal a structural shift or a shift in tone, but Sandoval’s films instead emphasize what the audience may already be feeling. Despite a running time of nearly an hour, this elegantly set story of police brutality and rekindled romance in 1970s Manila doesn’t feel like it’s even begun yet.
Early expectations were high for Moonglow, the fourth film from US-based Filipino actor, writer and director Sandoval, but his first since 2019’s Lingua Franca. The film, a sympathetic portrayal of an undocumented trans woman living in modern-day Brooklyn, premiered in Venice, was acquired by Ava DuVernay’s distribution company ARRAY, and earned Sandoval a considerable following. A period-set genre film replete with reference points for cinephiles, “Moonglow” is the formal destination one would expect after a breakthrough of modest proportions. But while it looks and sounds the part, blurred through distance and memory, giving the atmosphere of a humid tropical night a murky, hazy layer, the film is disappointing, blandly plotted as a thriller and only intermittently convincing as character work.
The film will garner interest domestically, thanks in part to the high profile of co-star Arjo Atayde (a well-known TV actor and member of the Philippine Nacionalista party), but internationally Sandoval’s reputation should earn it limited arthouse distribution (and, of course, more festival bookings) after its world premiere at Rotterdam’s Big Screen Competition. But the film is unlikely to win her many new fans, while those converted by Lingua Franca may wait for a new film that more closely resembles that film’s quiet humanism.
The film opens with a James Baldwin quote (“People are captives of history, and history is captive to them”), hinting at an intellectual and political agenda that goes beyond mere genre thrills. But in its quiet first few minutes, “Moonglow” feels like it’s moving in a brisk, hard-boiled style. Sandoval returns to lead actress duties, playing Dalia, a police officer who reports to Bernal (Dennis Marasigan), a shady police chief with friends both high and low, in 1979 Manila, which is still under martial law. She is ordered to investigate a robbery she committed by hiding a huge wad of cash in her dingy apartment. Assisting her in her investigation is Bernal’s nephew Charlie (Arjo Ataide), a straightforward lawyer who, as fate would have it, was Dalia’s lover 12 years ago.
But after presenting a promising thriller setup, the film quickly starts spinning its wheels. There’s little to complicate or tighten up the melodrama, just a superficial exploration of the two main characters whose romance is inevitably rekindled. It turns out that Dalia’s crimes were motivated by social justice rather than personal greed to benefit Manila’s underserved. But she remains something of a cipher, posing with immaculate, heavy-lidded élan and smoking a cigarette under the devoted gaze of cinematographer Isaac Banks’s camera, with few of her uniquely human weaknesses and impulses revealed.
Charlie, who has been living at home to care for his sick father since immigrating to the United States several years ago, is similarly underdeveloped except for the details of his situation. We can almost only guess what kind of inner conflict he’s going through as he gets closer to the truth about Dahlia. The repeated flashbacks to their courtship in 1967 reveal little, but we can at least admire the way Dahlia and Charlie look young and happy, luscious in their clean, summery formal wear—a far cry from their now-worn demeanor in both cases. (The baby-faced Ataide wears unflattering glasses to show the ravages of time.)
On screen, they’re an appealing pairing, but Sandoval’s sometimes clunky script means the chemistry between them is more buzz than crackle. (Sample exchanges: “We’re different people now.” “What are we now?” “Adults.”) Still, “Moonglow” is more comfortable in this intimate territory than when it tries to launch into higher genre gear. The gunfight scenes are awkwardly staged, and the harsher the dialogue, the harder it becomes to ignore the faint undertones of the play going on.
My confidence in the atmosphere has deepened. Banks shoots the film in soft, velvety dusk tones, like a languid, feverish vision a few beats behind reality. It’s the same impression that composer Keegan DeWitt’s faded, nocturnal jazz pieces give. “Moonglow” revels in noir-chic Hollywood trappings, combined with a very specific choice of time and place. The whirring of a fan, the single light of a dimly lit office, the luxurious ghost of cigarette smoke: all enhanced by a distinctly Southeast Asian sense of lethargy.
