I’ll level with all of you right up front: the main reason I wanted to review Granny Prostitutes is because the title of the film is outrageous. I knew even before I checked out a trailer that this wasn’t some low-brow pornographic film, but just having that title listed on your website is sure to drive some kind of traffic. There are a ton of kinks out there that I might find bizarre, but which tickle someone’s fancy in ways they can’t quite explain.
Now, funny intro aside, I’m not quite sure what I expected from this film. The official description provided to the NYAFF makes the film sound far more charming than it actually is. Granny Prostitutes plays out like an extremely low-budget telenovela that never settles on one tone while also attempting to juxtapose harsh reality with oft-kilter comedy. It’s not successful, even if certain aspects do work.
Granny Prostitutes
Director: Joel Lamangan
Release Date: December 2023 (Philippines), July 20, 2024 (NYAFF)
Country: Philippines
As seems to be the case this year at NYAFF, Granny Prostitutes is more a slice-of-life film about a group of elderly sex workers that doesn’t follow a strict plot or narrative structure. The film is broken up into episodic chunks that focus on one character for a bit before tying back into the main struggle that each of them is facing together. Set within the slums of the Philippines, Granny Prostitutes chronicles the lives of Dalena (Gloria Diaz), Bella (Liza Lorena), Corazon (Perla Bautista), Luningning (Pia Moran), and Miriam (Sunshine Cruz) as they struggle to make ends meet in a world that looks down on them. While dealing with the general disdain that Filipino culture has for sex workers, the son of one of Bella’s former clients shows up claiming he has the deed to their home and wants them gone from the premises.
While that is certainly a decent central conflict to hang a story on, Granny Prostitutes seemingly forgets that this is meant to be a film and proceeds to not only segment everything in 15-minute chunks but uses absolutely no budget to bring its story to life. More than anything, that is the one aspect that grated on me as the movie progressed. It’s fine when a filmmaker has seemingly nothing to work with and makes the best film they possibly can, but Granny Prostitutes winds up feeling like a movie cobbled together from change lost in the couch cushions versus anything resembling a final product.
Some extremely bizarre tonal shifts happen at the drop of a dime. The official description on the NYAFF website reads, “Gleefully pinballing between shameless hijinks and melodramatics,” and yeah… that’s accurate. I understand that life can be strange and throw wildly different situations at you within the span of 24 hours, but to have the group of grannies huddling around their dead friend and then cutting to some Looney Tunes-like music as one gets thrown out of a house doesn’t feel very cohesive or humorous. It just feels disjointed.
© Hero Hito Film Production Co
This isn’t entirely a mess, however. I have to give major props to the lead actors as they take on a role that likely won’t paint them in the brightest light. Featuring a cast that is actually of age for the roles they are playing, leading ladies Diaz, Lorena, and Bautista especially bring a certain vivacious strength to their characters. I would say the majority of the film hangs on Diaz’s shoulders as her character is not only the first story we’re introduced to but also the major theme of the entire film. She gives a great monologue towards the end that summarizes the entire thesis and it is genuinely touching. It’s just then followed up with some bizarre comedy that nearly derails the sentimentality.
Where I get confused is with the inclusion of Miriam, a woman who is 45 years old and has befriended the grannies at some point. I suppose 45 is old enough to be a grandmother, but her plight is entirely different from that of the other women. She is an aging sex worker who is dealing with a disease that slowly consumes her, not to mention a family that has shunned her for ages. It’s certainly sad, but it feels ripped from a completely separate film.
Miriam goes home as her story progresses and spends most of the film being berated by her mother and siblings. She tries to schedule chemotherapy and while you can empathize with her plight, it’s almost speaking to different cultural themes than what the movie was originally addressing. Nothing about Miriam’s story relates to sex work or the discrimination that older women face in society. There’s a hint of her lack of skills being down to having to sell her body from a young age, but that is a really broad subject that could fit into almost anything.
© Hero Hito Film Production Co
The same goes for Corazon’s plight, though I actually did find this one kind of sweet. She is seemingly suffering from dementia and spends a lot of time reminiscing about a man named Ernesto (Joonee Gamboa). Out of the blue, she runs into him and the two are mentally transported back to when Ernesto was screwing around in his younger days. They plan to run off together and Ernesto even runs away from his wife. This doesn’t work out, obviously, but having second-hand experience from my mom’s friend’s husband recently suffering from dementia, I can relate to the pain of talking to someone you once loved who no longer recognizes you.
Again, this story feels ripped from a wholly separate film as it doesn’t directly relate to being a sex worker. Sure, Ernesto’s wife criticizes Corazon for being an old whore, but the majority of this subplot isn’t about her sex work or even her age. I think that’s where Granny Prostitutes ultimately loses me. I do like the spotlight that is put on the societal values of sex workers and the conditions that lead elderly women to sell themselves on the streets, but the film doesn’t have a message to go along with that.
What truly struck me throughout the movie was the conditions of the Philippines, a country I had not realized was classified as a third-world country. This will eventually get around to some musings on the movie, but the living conditions these people have to put up with are pretty appalling. I’m not exactly sure what part of the country this film is set in, but it looks like a literal warzone half of the time. I don’t blame the filmmakers for showing the country how it really is, I’m just stunned that the movie didn’t place a stronger focus on how the government has failed its people or why these women feel the need to continue down the line of sex work in the first place.
© Hero Hito Film Production Co
In some of my research, I found an article about a similar phenomenon happening in South Korea and it details a larger societal issue with elderly poverty. Now, that is an entirely different country and one where governmental issues are at the forefront of discussions, but it speaks to the kind of insight I wish Granny Prostitutes had. Maybe I was expecting something way off the mark here, but this film is all hijinks with no substance. It presents a scenario that begs for sympathy from the audience, but then never fills them in on the true difficulties these women face in trying to overcome their circumstances.
I also just cannot get over how shoddily stapled together the whole thing is. Again, I understand this was likely made on an incredibly low budget and I’m certainly not going to fault a third-world country for not having 8K cameras and CGI effects, but Granny Prostitutes doesn’t have a unique look or sound of its own. It just kind of is, seemingly shot in a faux-documentary style as a means to get around the limitations of its finances.
I’m sure with a better understanding of the government of the Philippines, I might be able to draw some more in-depth conclusions here, but I didn’t find Granny Prostitutes to be engaging on much of any level. There is a strong core here that director Joel Lamangan was trying to bring to the light, he just fell incredibly short of the goal. A couple of solid performances can’t offset the incongruity that lies at the heart of this script, however.
