LEONOR WILL NEVER DIE: An Affectionate Tribute To Screenwriters And Creatives Of All Kinds

You always hear of authors writing themselves into their stories in the most meta of ways. It can feel self-absorbed for the uninitiated. However, creators often have close bonds with their characters. Because if you’ve created them, you feel a bit protective, almost like they are your real-life progeny. However, it runs even deeper than that. You not only gave them life but also have the power to rewrite their destinies through their decisions and the environments that you place them in. To take part in this very act, you have to have a bit of imagination left in you. It doesn’t take a flying TV set to the head to start the ideas flowing through the brain. It shows how the daydreams of screenwriters are a universal phenomenon for anyone who has ever put pen to page or fingers to the keyboard.

Of course, the Filipino film Leonor Will Never Die, written and directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar, is a movie about just this. An aging, absent-minded screenwriter named Leonor Reyes (Sheila Francisco) receives a horrible knock to the head and finds herself existing in one of her unfinished screenplays. Therein she effectively gets to realize the dreams of many a creator: to enter the space and time of her own work and change it in the most hands-on way possible.

The movie takes some getting used to because there’s a casual, lackadaisical rhythm to it. I was never totally taken in by the narrative arc, but I came to appreciate individual moments, the genre pastiche, and how it celebrates a film culture deserving more consideration.

Armed with the touch of the absurd, Leonor enters into the pages of what feels like a ’70s- or ’80s-era action flick steeped in all the beloved tropes you could possibly dream up. It’s the kind of story that you think might write itself. Still, Leonor is an action hero with a twist as she helps an intrepid young man (Rocky Salumbides) who looks to avenge his brother’s death by gangsters and stands ready to save the damsel in distress. What’s more, while Leonor lies in bed, stricken by a coma, she is given what feels like the ultimate opportunity to control her own destiny.

Making Connections

Because Leonor herself is a writer, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the whimsy of Jame Thurber’s original “Walter Mitty” short story or even the outlandish daydreams of Paris When It Sizzles, a film documenting a struggling screenwriter on a strict deadline. It also brings to mind something like Le Magnifique where Jean-Paul Belmondo takes on the dual role of both pulp writer and action hero.

Or to a lesser degree, it evokes Day for Night, a film making us privy to all the interpersonal drama and chaos that overruns any film production. Leonor is yet another film showcasing the desire to break through the artifice even as it looks to celebrate the form.

Based on all these reference points I’ve rattled off, this movie doesn’t represent an entirely new concept. It’s another story of the fantastical breaking into the humdrum of the everyday from electricity bills to hospital waiting rooms. What makes it unique is how it showcases a different voice and thereby a different section of the world worth acknowledging.

In the year of Everything Everywhere All At Once, it seems fitting to celebrate another hero who is not of the prototypical mold. Unfortunately, middle-aged mothers of Asian descent aren’t normally at the top of the pecking order. Movies like these potentially signal a change. By unfurling its own family drama about mothers and sons against a wild, wacky tableau of machismo and blazing gunfights, Leonor also utilizes genre in an attempt to tell a human story.

Conclusion: Leonor Will Never Die

Sometimes you don’t totally gel with a picture by no fault of its own, and I enjoyed the ideas conjured up by Leonor more than the execution of the film itself. The reader must come to their own conclusions. There’s one thing I do know: You cannot begrudge the film its winsome spirit epitomized so enthusiastically in its hip-swaying finale.

It gets across the communal nature of the movies and especially small movies outside the big-budget extravagance we’re now accustomed to in Hollywood. Leonor Will Never Die is a movie pure in heart even when it falters.

In a rather serendipitous way, I had similar feelings about Everything Everywhere All At Once because the stories are so ripe with imagination and invention. The implementation is not always to my liking, and still, my hope is that Leonor Will Never Die can also open us up to the wide, wonderful world of Filipino cinema.

Hopefully, Escobar will be spurred on to more films because her love of the medium is palpable. Regardless of our cultural roots and specific movie-going proclivities, it’s easy to appreciate a kindred spirit.

Leonor Will Never Die is now available on VOD and streaming services.

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