Yellow Rose

Great acting, casting, direction, locations. Everything but an actual story.

I just screened this movie at the 2019 San Diego Asian Film Festival to a packed house! The audience, although made up of many with a Filipino background - was still quite diverse with other ethnic backgrounds.

This movie depicted what many undocumented families are facing in America today. We don't quite often hear of the Filipino experience, so this was very eye opening and emotional, as our fellow neighbors/friends may be going through this personally and we may not be aware.

Once this movie is widely released, I encourage you to bring your family and friends to watch! This is such a relevant story! Kudos to the director for bringing Filipino perspectives to the big screen. Filipinos are not only great singers or produce beauty queens, but they have Important stories to tell, especially in this film with a fantastic cinematic debut by Eva Noblezada and backed by the supporting actors and a great soundtrack!

This is an important film about immigration, music, and the variety of ways we all try to become the people we want to be. While the acting can come off as a bit stiff with writing that is a little too superficial and full of tropes, the music of Eva Noblezada and Dale Watson, along with a critical story about the struggles of being undocumented and chasing your own dreams, make this very much worth a view!

Before I watched this movie I had no idea who Eva Noblezada was. I was so impressed with her performance, both her acting and her truly marvelous singing voice, I had to look her up. Even though she plays a 17-yr-old high school student living with her mom, she in fact was about 22 during filming. Earlier in her career she starred in the Broadway musical "Miss Saigon" and was nominated for the 2017 Tony Award for best actress in a musical. Her performance at the 2017 Tonys is easy to find on U-tube, it is worth looking up.

So here she is Rose Garcia, her mom works at the Bastrop Inn and they live there, both undocumented. Rose plays guitar and writes songs for herself but she has a lot of budding talent. When her mom gets taken away she has to seek places to stay and one big help is a local Austin country music star. He puts her up for a while and helps her find her voice and be brave enough to sing in front of people.

This is a good movie and Eva Noblezada is very good. There has to be a singing arc and because she is such an accomplished singer she must sing initially with much restraint. Only as the movie is ending do we witness her full vocal abilities.

I like Eva Noblezada, I hope we see her in future movies. To me there is a parallel with Jessie Buckley, the Irish actress who is so good in "Wild Rose", also an aspiring country singer in that movie.

My wife and I watched it on DVD from our public library.

Right, while the concept of the movie somewhat falls short of what I usually sit down to watch, I must admit that the 2019 movie "Yellow Rose" from writer and director Diane Paragas actually turned out to be a rather surprisingly good movie.

Normally I am not one that sits down to watch country-inspired movies, but I will say that the storyline told in "Yellow Rose" was actually a wide-spanning one, so it wasn't just about the country genre. No, this was a story about the bonds of family, being able to follow your heart and dreams and the willingness to take a chance. Actually there were multiple interesting aspects to the storyline, which made for a wholesomely entertaining movie.

"Yellow Rose" has a good ensemble of casted actors and actresses. I can't claim to have been familiar with anyone on the cast list, but they definitely put on great performances. Young actress Eva Noblezada, playing Rose, was really holding her ground and carrying the movie with a very strong and committed performance, one that had emotion and conviction to it. "Yellow Rose" also had a great performance by Dale Watson, playing Dale, as he really added something unique and interesting to the movie. And Princess Punzalan, playing Priscilla Garcia, definitely also put on a good performance, just a shame that she had so limited screen time.

This movie has a good variety of characters and dialogue, and you very easily get dragged into the storyline and forming a connection with the characters, so that was a good accomplishment from the writers.

I will say that the music for this movie was really complimenting the storyline and added a very enjoyable layer to the movie. Now, I am not one that listens to country music at all, but I will say that the movie they had for the movie was well-fitting.

This is definitely a movie that you should take the time to sit down and watch if you find yourself with the chance to do so. I was more than genuinely surprised and entertained by what writer and director Diane Paragas managed to deliver. My rating of "Yellow Rose" lands on a well-deserved six out of ten stars.