Billie & Emma 2018 123movies

Watch: Billie & Emma 2018 123movies, Full Movie Online – Set in the mid-1990s, the film tells the story of Billie, a troublemaker from the big city who gets exiled to San Isidro to live with her single aunt, the town’s religious teacher. Determined to change her ways and get through her last year of high school without incident, Billie hides herself from the world until she meets Emma, an ambitious star student who coaxes Billie out of her shell. They soon fall in love but things get complicated when Emma finds out that she’s pregnant. Together, they explore the fleeting nature of love and life on this journey of growth, laughter, and music..
Plot: Billie, a teenage rock star, moves to the province and meets Emma, a model and almost the perfect example of a good daughter. Together, they go through the experience of first love.
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Ratings:

	7.3/10 Votes: 69
	N/A | RottenTomatoes
	N/A | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 4 Popularity: 0.823 | TMDB

Reviews:

The new girl in school
Billie and Emma is a film from the Philippines written and directed by Samantha Lee. The film is partly in Tagalog, and partly in English.

Zar Donato plays Billie, a young woman from Manila, who has been sent to the smaller city of San Isidro, because her parents hope she’ll lose her attraction to girls. Billie stands out immediately–she’s the only student with short hair, she wears heavy boots, and she defends same-sex attraction. (The lesson plan on her first day is that same-sex attraction isn’t a sin, but acting upon that attraction is a sin. Billie disagrees.)

Gabby Padilla portrays Emma, the perfect student in their Catholic school. She’s bright, beautiful, and popular.

You can tell from the title that the plot will revolve around the relationship of the two girls, and it does. However, their are plenty of plot twists along the way.

The two leads do a good job, but I would single out two supporting actors for special praise: Cielo Aquino as Billie’s aunt, who is a teacher at the school, and Beauty Gonzalez, as Emma’s childlike mother.

We saw this movie at The Little Theatre, as part of Rochester’s excellent ImageOut LGBT Film Festival. If you can’t find it at a festival, it will work will on the small screen.

Billie and Emma was shown as a “New York Sneak Preview.” Obviously, it hasn’t been shown much. It only has 26 IMDb ratings, and I’m the first reviewer. The few people who have rated it produced an strong rating of 7.3, and I think that it’s at least that good.

A competent queer film
Billie & Emma is a girl-meets-girl high school romance comedy that could have been better.

The opening scene introduces us to Billie (Zar Danton) standing near a rural waiting shed. Restless and displaced, she lights a cigarette and discards it after a few puffs. A Manileña, she just arrived in the green and airy town of San Isidro. She would continue the rest of her high school education at St. Gerard, an all-girls religious school in the said town after her father found out she was a lesbian. In school, she meets Emma (charming performance from Gabby Padilla), a bright-eyed star student, who notices Billie for her defiant attitude, manly stance, and her odd choice to wear combat boots in school.

Writer and director Samantha Lee surely has a lot of things to say on homosexuality, its effect on relationships, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, and abortion. But unfortunately most of her musings remained only in dialogue, not realized on screen.

Consider this God’s Not Dead-like scenario where Billie’s religion teacher, also her aunt, Miss Castro (Cielo Aquino) highlights homosexuality as a sin, pulling a verse from the Bible. Of course, Billie debated her in victory. But this moment came across as abrupt and forced, and so did the ‘egg funeral’ scene knocked off from 3 Idiots when Rancho confronted Virus. While it did build Castro’s character, the scene, along with her reading of Rubyfruit Jungle, did little to establish her change of heart and quick confession later on. Characters also speak in a mix of English and Filipino, and it contributed to the film’s preachy tone.

This is not to say the film does not have its moments. Emma’s unfettered and modish mother (Beauty Gonzales) is entertaining and she provides some of the best scenes. One scene, surprised me when Emma confessed her pregnancy to her mother. Beauty’s character reacted casually, contrary to audience expectations which earned laughs. Also the scene when Emma publicly announced her pregnancy in the middle of a flag ceremony, and later drew support from her classmates to protest “Save the baby!” is hilarious.

Subtle symbolisms were also present. Emma and her mother calmly talking about abortion while working on clothes hangers was unsettling and strong. One of the two long takes I spotted was interesting: same-sex lovers romancing in the foreground with a blurry church in the background; the other was plainly ineffective and unnecessary, just to set them up for a kiss. The 90s high school setting was almost effective but not fully harnessed, a watered-down ABNKKBSNPLAko?! vibe.

It’s evident the film is pro-choice. Characters make bold decisions and thinks little about traditions, norms, and morals, which I respect. It’s just that I felt it juggled too many of its underexecuted themes. It struggled to simultaneously appeal and give lessons to the audience. But an audience? Yes, it has.

Original review first published on Atenews (06/29/2019)

Other Information:

Original Language tl
Runtime 1 hr 47 min (107 min), 1 hr 44 min (104 min) (festival)
Budget 0
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated N/A
Genre Romance
Director Samantha Lee
Writer Samantha Lee
Actors Gabby Padilla, Zar Donato, Beauty Gonzalez
Country Philippines
Awards 2 wins & 10 nominations
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio N/A
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length N/A
Negative Format N/A
Cinematographic Process N/A
Printed Film Format N/A