The 'Thank You' Girls
A welcome breather from gay films centered on sex or 'coming out', “The 'Thank You' Girls” humorously portrays another side of gay life in the Philippines. This light-hearted film introduces us to six dysfunctional gay beauty pageant veterans who, tired of losing pageants in their urban hometown, travel around rural Mindanao with a single mission: to conquer the region's grandest competitions of beauty and brains. Charliebebs Gohetia, the editor of Brillante Mendoza’s films, turns director with this deeply Filipino variation on Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Unlike its prototype, though, it’s not powered by the emotional highs and lows of melodrama. Instead we meet characters who are at once laid-back, resigned and defeated, yet wonderfully resilient.