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Review

This tragic and over-the-top melodrama focuses on the societal pressures of being lesbian in a conservative society. Elsie, a young Filipino woman, submits to the pressures of her working class mother and marries the rich and dashing Tito, leaving her secret lesbian lover, Karen, behind. Unsatisfied with straight married life, Elsie runs off to nurse the now cancer-ridden Karen and, choosing to be open about who she is, finally comes out to her mother. Meanwhile, the homophobic, often violent Tito can’t believe she’s left. But no sooner is she celebrating lesbian life out of the closet then she discovers that she is pregnant, and now the threesome Elsie, Karen and Tito, must learn to tolerate each other and be friends before the child is born. And all of this happens under the steaming, love-lorn eyes of Barok, our narrator and Karen’s quiet, butch care-keeper who is displaced by Elsie. Set in the opulent green hills and along the rich coastline of the Philippines, these three troubled people have to fight the internal and external homophobia and classicism the Filipino structure demands. Told with sensitivity, without sanitizing the most difficult and intimate aspects of strained relationships, Three is most of all a cautionary tale – sisters and brothers, to thine own self be true. (Tagalog with English subtitles)