Serbis (Service) (2008)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 28
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 5
This darkly comic family drama finds ways of being viscerally graphic and intellectually stimulating at the same time.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 1
This darkly comic family drama finds ways of being viscerally graphic and intellectually stimulating at the same time.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 556
My Rating
Movie Info
A struggling family from the provinces discovers that morality can be both absolute and relative as they suffer each others' pains and vices while awaiting the court decision in the mother's charges of bigamy against her estranged husband. The Pineda family operates a ramshackle movie house specializing in second-run sex flicks: 58-year-old family matriarch Nanay Flor oversees the operation while trading shifts in the ticket booth with daughter Nayda, son-in-law Lando, and adopted daughter
May 18, 2008 Wide
Mar 9, 2010
Regent Releasing
Cast
-
Gina Pareńo
Nanay Flor -
Jaclyn Jose
Nayda -
Julio Diaz
Lando -
Coco Martin
Alan -
Kristoffer King
Ronald -
Dan Alvaro
Jerome -
Mercedes Cabral
Merly -
Roxanne Jordan
Jewel
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All Critics (29) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (5)
While it has its gag-inducing moments, director Brillante Mendoza's film about a three-generational family that lives in and operates a rundown porn theatre is more sweet than twisted.
Top CriticYou have been advised; proceed accordingly.
Part-telenovela, part outlandish screwball comedy, part soft-porno, but completely without a road map, Serbis evokes Pedro Almodóvar, Tennessee Williams, and 1940s and '50s Hollywood.
Serbis has the feel of a documentary, but a documentary can't accomplish what "Serbis" does: Take us to a corner of the world where sex and regret are so intimately entwined.
This isn't a family -- or a film -- you'll easily forget.
The Filipino movie Serbis is gentle, bawdy and at times rambunctiously, ticklishly rude.
The number of characters involved leaves the plotlines strung out and little emotion for the audience to cling to.
film feels like it has more to say but can't get the wording right
A gritty little drama that leaves you feeling like you might need a shower.
That calling-attention-to-the-idea-that-we're-watching-a-movie device is at odds with the realism of the story, but it does a nice job of illustrating the central question of Serbis: Which is going to fall apart first, the Family or the family?
Enthralling. A vivid portrait of a family seemingly involved in only their own problems who have been infected by the filth and enervation around them.
Unflinching, graphic depictions of illicit sex and boil-lancing are memorable, but the family's moral ambiguities and sense of lost prestige are what fascinate the most.
A unique and artistic treatment of gritty family survival but one that will turn away viewers with its carnal setting and sand-blasted treatment of the human condition.
Often drags with too many poorly developed characters its convoluted, unfocused plot. If it were more character-driven and had a sharper screenplay, it would have been a much more captivating drama.
A scraggly, messy, often aimless, and yet consistently amusing and engaging work of black comedy-cum-social-realism.
Though [director] Mendoza doesn't care to resolve all of the many subplots he's jugging, the film gives a complete picture of a family, a business, and a city in disarray, and the looming fallout.
Audience Reviews for Serbis (Service)
Super Reviewer
[font=Century Gothic]The theater shows pornography of a heterosexual inclination but almost all of the clientele are gay men who use the darkness to have sex away from a government that at the very least frowns upon such activity. To punctuate this, there is a religious procession towards the end.[/font]
[font=Century Gothic]All of which is fine and good. If only there was more of substance, then "Serbis" might have truly had something going. Instead, there are too many shots going up and down staircases and a disturbing subplot about a boil. Next time, stop for a second and catch your breath.[/font]
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Service (DE)
- Service (Serbis) (UK)
The setting is a run-down porn theater in the slums of Angeles (Philippines). Serbis takes us behind the scenes, from one amoral act to the next, exposing the poverty and hopelessness of those involved. Okay, I get it. If you go through the countryside turning over rocks you're bound to see a few creepy-crawly things. What else would one expect? The shortcomings of the characters seem to be the apex of the story. There's little else to latch on to. I found myself wanting the plot to go somewhere but it just doesn't. The technique is sound but, on the whole, the film is little more than tabloid cinema. Given Mendoza's reputation, I was completely disappointed.