‘Easter Sunday’ Review: A Feel-Good Filipino Family Comedy

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“Easter Sunday” has all of the makings of a rollicking household comedy: The protagonist is a struggling actor and comic with wacky kin and a rocky relationship together with his son. The movie options largely Filipino actors, with fantastic, culturally particular jokes and a solid of characters that match into stereotypical, however no much less true, immigrant archetypes. Not solely Filipino viewers will see their households represented right here; a lot of it rang true to this Dominican reviewer, as nicely.

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, the film finds Joe Valencia (Jo Koy) making an attempt to get his profession off the bottom as producers stress him to placed on a Filipino accent to e book a serious position. On the similar time, he struggles to attach together with his son, Junior (Brandon Wardell), a Gen Z highschool scholar Joe views as privileged. Generational divides are additionally on show at Easter dinner on the household matriarch’s dwelling in San Francisco, the place Joe and Junior take a street journey.

There are a lot of genuinely humorous moments within the movie, together with jabs between the warring aunties, the excessive jinks of a bonehead cousin and conditions involving the household’s irreverent relationship to faith. Plus, the film contains some profitable cameos: Tiffany Haddish performs a police officer and outdated flame of Joe’s, and Lou Diamond Phillips makes an look as himself. However issues veer a bit off track with a subplot involving an unlawful scheme and neighborhood goons. “Easter Sunday” is at its strongest when it stays near the Valencia household, which is made for TV.

Easter Sunday
Rated PG-13 for violence and a few sturdy language. Working time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters.

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