Here’s my take on the film Jacqueline Comes Home: The Chiong Story which stars Joel Torre, Meg Imperial, Donnalyn Bartolome, Alma Moreno, Ryan Eigenmann, AJ Muhlach and more. The film was directed by Ysabelle Peach Caparas and written by Carlo J. Caparas.

I’ll make this short and sweet and still deadly.

I’ve never seen a film that’s twice as biased, twice as crappy, twice as absurd and twice as propagandist as Jacqueline Comes Home: The Chiong Story. I can’t believe I wasted money on this crap. The last Viva movie I did, Sid and Aya Not a Love Story.

What’s all the hubbub anyway? This was a movie based on the side of the Chiong Family whose two daughters Marijoy and Jacqueline disappeared in Cebu in 1997. Pretty much this was a semi-biographical treatment of the case and the crime with the expert hands of “Massacre Movie King” Carlo J. Caparas who takes the backseat being credited as a writer for the story. In his place, we have Ysabelle Peach Caparas takes the directors chair.

Was it any good? I’d say barely. Modern na yung camera, modern na yung pag-shoot pero its consistently the same stuff at it’s very core to films like “Vizconde Massacre” and The Maggie Dela Riva Story.

What sets “Jacqueline Comes Home: The Chiong Story” from it’s “sisters” is the fact that there’s a hole the size of .45mm bullet in the story both in the film’s treatment and in real life. And I’m disgusted that they chose to spend time on doing the following things in the movie (a) push their agenda of vilifying the Chiong 7 including the main face of the group, Paco Larrañaga (b) gravitating towards religious themes (c) playing on that silly “nasapian” moment from back when the case’s verdict was passed down.

The film’s main “villain”, Paco Sonny was written so bad that they actually had to write in lines for Eigenmann to blurt out Spanish cuss words and stuff just to hammer the point that this is actually a Spanish guy doing all the abuse to these girls. Seriously. Oh and did I mention that they also did a revisionist take on Davidson Rusia, the “state witness” that helped convict the real life Chiong 7 suspects? Movie version was painted as a kind person who was wracked by guilt over the crime of raping and murdering the Chiong sisters.

Then there’s that point in the movie where Mrs. Chiong actually speaks with God. As in God, Yaweh, Bathala. It was around this point that I just lost it. 2018 na, why are we still doing these scenes?

I’ve got no problem with the casting, I thought it was a great set of characters. And seeing the Chiong family IRL and the ones in the movie, I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. More of it was because of again the way they were written. A movie can never capture a person’s entire life nor give you enough to pass judgement (which you should never anyway). If you’re reading this review and planning on bashing either one of the two lead stars, I ask you, please don’t. They were just doing their jobs. It’s like getting mad at Jim Caviezel for playing Jesus Christ, useless and walang kabuluhan.

And walang kabuluhan is also the word I can end this review of The Chiong Story movie. Wala talaga. Can’t see anything good about this. And you know what, save your 300 pesos and just watch GIVE UP TOMORROW:

Jacqueline Comes Home: The Chiong Story Review Verdict

0/10

Sorry not sorry. This was bad. Terrible. I hope the next time they make a crime adaptation, they actually present two sides of the story AND make it as unbiased as possible.