Mark Reviews Movies: YELLOW ROSE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 8, 2020

Pretty quickly, we think we have a handle on the story of Yellow Rose. A teenage girl, living out of a hotel room with her mother somewhere in Texas, is obsessed with country music. Bored with homework, she strums a guitar, hums a tune, and jots down some lyrics. Then, she starts to sing her song—quietly but with passion and sincerity. The girl clearly has talent. It's just going to take some luck and a big break for her to get out this situation, right?

That's the obvious story here, and while co-writer/director Diane Paragas definitely has that tale in mind and gradually moves the lead character toward that destination, the movie isn't merely content to allow that formulaic plot to be the end of this story. There's a lot more here, most of it having to do with the fact that Rose Garcia (Eva Noblezada) and her mother Priscilla (Princess Punzalan) are undocumented immigrants from the Philippines.

Paragas, Annie J. Howell, and Celena Cipriaso's screenplay is caught between two modes. One has to do with the plight of constant fear and uncertainty in Rose's situation. The other has to do with the inevitable path of the story of a young, unknown up-and-comer on her way to musical success. If there's a core issue with the movie, it's in the way that neither mode quite seems to complement the other.

The stakes, consequences, and underlying themes of the immigration story—a family separated for an indefinite amount of time, the knowledge that government agents could arrive and upheave one's life without warning, the systematic dehumanization of people based on their citizenship or the lack thereof—are weighty. How and when Rose might make it big as a country singer, on the other hand, seems relatively inconsequential when placed directly aside that other part of the tale.

The screenplay does pull off a fairly admirable bait-and-switch technique in its first act. We meet Rose, through her blossoming talent, and her mother, working at the hotel where she lives with her daughter. Needing some new guitar strings, the teenager chats with Elliot (Liam Booth), the clerk at the music shop, who invites her to a concert to the Broken Spoke, the last of the authentic country-western dance clubs in Austin. The religious and conservative Priscilla rejects Rose's request to go, but the daughter pretends that Elliott is just taking her to church.

The apparent beats of Rose's rise are set up quickly. She loves the bar, has a short chat about music with Dale Watson (the musician plays himself in a performance that feels wholly and authentically lived-in, probably because it is), and watches him perform. Obviously, this sudden, chance relationship is going to pay off at some point in the big break Rose needs.

Upon returning home to the hotel, though, Rose watches as her mother is being detained by ICE agents. Priscilla hadn't been honest with Rose about their immigration status, which the daughter assumed was guaranteed because of her late father's legal residency. As a result, Rose has to find a new and safe place to live, figure out a way to try to secure her mother's place in the United States, and avoid immigration enforcement agents along the way.

The concept here is sound, thoughtful, and compassionate, even if the dialogue about immigration concerns possesses a tinny, on-the-nose quality. We watch Rose stay with her aunt Gail (Lea Salonga), whose occasionally-seen husband angrily rejects the idea of Rose staying there, and make her way back to the bar, where owner Jolene (Libby Villari) offers a safe place and a job. Meanwhile, the movie also shows Priscilla, forced to sleep on a small mattress on the floor and assigned an alpha-numeric call sign to replace her name.

Paragas' depiction of these juxtaposed scenarios—the daughter and the mother—is effective. The movie establishes Rose's indefinite fate, as she scrounges for money and a roof over her head, while the threat of an ICE raid lingers on her mind (There is one later, which is almost too conveniently resolved and feels a bit contrived as a result). Priscilla is refused basic rights, treated like a disposable thing, and never knows if or when deportation to Manilla will arrive—and "if" seems like an unlikely prospect.

There's still the other side of the story, regarding Rose's musical fulfillment. That eventually gets her better acquainted with Dale, a constant drinker but a kind man filled with too many regrets to count. As pleasant as it is to watch Rose come into her own (She has stage fright and a hesitancy to write about her own experiences) and as tender as the student-mentor relationship becomes, there remains this sinking feeling that these dream-chasing stakes are nowhere near as vital as the ones involving society and government's inability to see Rose and her mother as people.

What we get, then and again, is a movie of two, distinctly separate modes. Scenes here work individually, particularly those involving Noblezada (a clearly talented newcomer, who communicates vulnerability and determination with easy sympathy) and Watson (whose character and performance suggest so much that the relationship comes up a bit short-changed), but as sincere as the movie is about each part of its two-sided tale, Yellow Rose never brings them together in a satisfactory or impactful way.

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