"Leonor Will Never Die" is a 2022 Filipino meta-cinematic adventure that journeys through the realms of reality and fiction, blending the lines between life and art in an imaginative and whimsical manner. Directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar, the film presents itself as a creative foray into the world of a bygone era of Filipino action cinema, paying tribute to its charm and cultural significance.
The movie revolves around the titular character, Leonor Reyes, played by the captivating Sheila Francisco. Leonor is a retired screenwriter of Filipino action movies, a genre that's sail has long since set from the mainstream shores. Leonor drifts through her quiet life, surrounded by the nostalgia of her previous passion for writing action-packed stories that once enthralled audiences in the Philippines. However, the billows of time and changing tastes have left her professional career in the dust, forcing her to confront a life that feels increasingly devoid of the excitement and purpose that writing once provided her.
Despite her retirement, Leonor's spirit for storytelling hasn't diminished. As she lives alone, she longs for the days when her scripts were brought to life on the silver screen. The film portrays Leonor as an ardent dreamer, who dives back into her past through an unsold script she finds—her unproduced masterpiece that never saw the light of the box office. The discovery of this script ignites a spark in Leonor's life, leading her to fantasize about reliving her days as a celebrated writer.
The transcendent moments of "Leonor Will Never Die" are brought forth as Leonor, in an extraordinary turn of events, falls into a coma. It is here that the boundary between her reality and the fictional world of her own creation begins to blur. Leonor finds herself transported inside the narrative of her own unsold script, becoming a character in the action-packed, thrilling tale she had penned.
Inside this narrative world, Leonor's presence adds a layer of metatextual humor and depth that uniquely characterizes the film. She interacts with the stereotypical archetypes of classic Filipino action dramas: the righteous hero, the villain with no lack of henchmen, the inevitable fight scenes, and the dramatic turns that define the genre. The characters she once breathed life into through her writing are now her companions, friends and foes alike—their fates, oddly enough, in her hands.
Supporting characters such as Bong Cabrera and Rocky Salumbides enrich the story with their performances, adding layers of complexity and helping to create an atmosphere that echoes the action and drama Leonor once wrote. Cabrera and Salumbides, though fictional within the context of Leonor's narrative, possess qualities and arcs that resonate deeply with the experiences of the viewers, rooted in the familiarity of the genre conventions they stem from.
The world inside the coma is vividly realized through the eyes of director Martika Ramirez Escobar, whose deft handling of genre blending and magical realism allows the audience to indulge in Leonor's escape from the mundanity of her waking life. The seamless merging of the real and the imagined, the literal and the metaphorical, sprinkles the film with both nostalgia and innovation, often making it difficult to determine where one ends and the other begins.
The cinematography of "Leonor Will Never Die" is a melange of modern filmmaking techniques with a tone that harkens back to the grainy, saturated hues of 1980s Philippine cinema. The visual style pays homage to the era, contributing to the celebratory yet reflective nature of the film as it examines the influence of stories on both the audience and the creators themselves. The comic absurdity of some moments, paired with emotionally resonant ones, propels the narrative beyond its genre confines, creating a film that's as much about the joy of creation as it is about the stories we tell.
While the film ventures into a fantasy realm, it remains grounded in a sense of familial ties and personal loss, weaving through Leonor's relations that exist outside of her imagined world. This dual narrative prompts a meditation on the power of art—how stories can shape, sustain, and sometimes overwhelm our reality. It's a testament to the enduring spirit of creativity, the undying appeal of storytelling, and the enduring impact of cinema.
"Leonor Will Never Die" is ultimately a paean to the whimsy and passion of filmmaking. It's an exploration of an aging artist's psyche and an acknowledgment of how a life can be marvelously reinvigorated through the magic of the movies. In celebrating the old and the new, the real and the fantasy, the past and the present, the film becomes an innovative work and a heartwarming ode to an overlooked genre that once dominated Filipino screens. It's a movie that entices its viewers to both remember and dream, to bask in the glow of cinematic history while also embracing the endless possibilities that stories hold.
Leonor Will Never Die is a 2022 fantasy movie with a runtime of 1 hour and 41 minutes.
It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.6 and a MetaScore of 73.
