Comforts of Home: How Cleaners Captures the Naivete of High School

“I never knew life was this messy.”

Weird and relatable in the most glorious way possible.

I’ve been waiting to watch this movie for ages, mostly because it’s Filipino, and we don’t really get a lot of genuinely good Filipino made movies that capture the Philippines and its people so beautifully.

I talk a lot about the intersections of comedy and culture and nuance, and I think Cleaners is a perfect blend of it all.

The best movie I’ve watched this year—to put it plainly.

This movie depicts home so well. Cheesy jingles, saving up with your friends to buy something as simple as CDs, naming everything after national heroes, faded desks and humid classrooms, the unending noise the traffic of tricycles, motorcycles, horse drawn carriages, and cars. I always have a deep appreciation for details, and this movie seriously made me miss the Philippines so much more.

Students in the Philippines have performances and duties as patrons of the school, and being assigned to clean the classroom is one of them.

Following this group of cleaners, the film presents an anthology of teenage love, heartbreak, angst, and most importantly: the friendship among them.

It’s heartwarming and real, though a bit exaggerated at times, but in the way that resembles the human memory. This brings me to what drew me initially to this film—which is how it was made. Printed frame by frame and hand colored in with highlighters, this film has one of the most unique presentations I’ve ever seen. Seriously man. The inconsistency of the ink on printers and highlighter strokes evoke the feeling of nostalgia and a memory that sticks in the back of your mind.

As a Filipino teen with one foot in the Philippines and one in America, it’s hard not to relate or see myself in the main characters of the film. But even then, the enjoyment of this movie is not mutually exclusive to Filipino teens, and it’s going to be a great watch for anyone who digs coming-of-age movies.

I really loved the emo kids (Eman, Arnold, Lester) and their flair for the dramatic. They represent a niche of Filipinos in the motherland who long for American things, and the small punk rock scene we had on the islands.

I loved the drinking of Yakult like tequila shots, which is something I did. Students were gossiping during mass and one of the main characters became victim to the highly devout Catholic culture of the Philippines due to her pregnancy. This film even tackles the topic of corruption of government officials at a local level, which is something I have never seen before. This film is so incredibly real, but never gets too heavy to digest. Great tonal balance I must say.

Also, I kinda lost my sh*t when The Black Parade started playing during the lament of The Three Emos.

On another side note, the music and soundtrack was great. Pulls the right emotional beats and it was nice hearing the music I grew up with play on screen.

Hilarious and tugs at the hearts. Became one of my favorite films of all time in under two hours.

Cleaners tells the story of high school kids, who learn that the world is not as perfect or squeaky clean as they had come to know it through the lens of their childhood selves. In the same way the dirt and mess of a classroom never stops coming, life just keeps getting messier, and the only thing we armed with to get though it is each other.

MUST WATCH FOR THOSE WANTING TO SEE SOMETHING FILIPINO OR ANY COMING OF AGE MOVIE LOVERS.

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