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<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2016/entertainment2/05/18/ma-rosa-051816.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Jaclyn Jose stars in Mendoza&#x27;s newest entry about the police corruption in the Philippines, Ma &#x27;Rosa.</div></figcaption></figure></div>MANILA - The reviews for &quot;Ma &#x27;Rosa,&quot; Brillante Mendoza&#x27;s entry in the main competition of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, began filtering in Wednesday. The film, which stars Jaclyn Jose, Julio Diaz, Andi Eigenmann, Felix Roco, and Jomari Angeles, held its festival premiere on Tuesday. The film tells the story of a poor Manila neighborhood stall holder who sells drugs on the side with her husband to make ends meet. The couple gets arrested, leaving their four children to try and buy their parents&#x27; freedom from corrupt policemen.Here are what the critics are saying: <a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/ma-rosa-review-cannes-brillante-mendoza-1201776208/" target="_blank">Variety</a>&#x27;s Chief Asia Film Critic Maggie Lee praised Mendoza. &quot;Boasting a simple, coherent plot shot with real-time, handheld verismo, it’s a work of understated confidence that will not disappoint his festival acolytes, but probably won’t win many new converts.&quot; Allan Hunter of <a href="http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/marosa-cannes-review/5104135.article?blocktitle=Latest-Reviews&amp;contentID=592#.VzxNLHIiUaM.facebook" target="_blank">Screen Daily</a> wrote: &quot;Mendoza continues to be a filmmaker who shines a light into the dark corners of otherwise unreported lives.&quot; &quot;Ma &#x27;Rosa offers a bleak portrait of the poverty and corruption in the Philippines as we witness chaotic, shanty town streets teeming with people and strewn with rubbish and a society in which only the most ruthless can survive,&quot; Hunter added. However, a few more close-ups of the characters, such as the one of the title character at the very end, might have helped the film pack a greater emotional punch and given more of a sense of the individuals plights within this family.The film received a more lukewarm reception from Boyd van Hoeij, who writes for <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ma-rosa-cannes-review-894808" target="_blank">Hollywood Reporter</a>. &quot;Not as gorgeously cinematic as his first competition entry in Cannes, 2008’s Serbis, nor as intense and dark as his second Palme-hopeful and best-director winner, Kinatay, this third competition entry needs to lean heavily on its story and characters to keep audiences engaged.&quot; &quot;However, Troy Espiritu’s plot-driven screenplay and Mendoza’s preference for a documentary-like style mean that the final result is neither as deep nor as resonant as it could have been,&quot; said Van Hoeij. <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/ma-rosa-cannes-review-its-ugly-and-thats-the-point/" target="_blank">The Wrap</a>&#x27;s Ben Croll said the film&#x27;s &quot;loftiest goals and highest highs never quite hit the peaks expected from Official Competition contenders.&quot; &quot;You have to give &#x27;Ma&#x27; Rosa&#x27; points for this: Filipino director Brillante Mendoza’s neorealist indictment of police corruption looks unlike any other film playing in Cannes&#x27; Official Competition. It’s just that what sets the film apart is its visual ugliness,&quot; Croll said. The Guardian&#x27;s Peter Bradshaw gave the film three out of five stars. &quot;Ma ’Rosa is made with control and clarity, a narrative purpose which is held on to despite an apparently aimless docu-style, and a clear sense of jeopardy.&quot;&quot;My reservation is that it doesn’t reveal much of what is going on in Rosa’s mind and heart: merely the externals of a grim situation, and we are finally impassively returned to the ground-zero of survival-struggle without having learned anything we didn’t already know. But it’s a cold, hard look at what being poor actually means, and how few options there are for escape.&quot;

The film tells the story of a poor Manila neighborhood stall holder who sells drugs on the side with her husband to make ends meet.

Brillante Mendoza's 'Ma 'Rosa': What critics are saying

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Brillante Mendoza's 'Ma 'Rosa': What critics are saying

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Published May 18, 2016 11:57 PM PHT

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