Cristina Gonzales in Bad Girl (1991)

Clips

Review

It’s not easy being sexy, young, and female. Society--particularly that judgmental, meddling portion of humanity that feels called upon to right-size any personality that refuses to be confined to a prefabricated mold--will not forgive a freshly minted woman who dares to approach life on her own terms. The critics, the scolds, the jealous prudes, and the aching lechers all unite in scornfully labeling her a Bad Girl (1991). At once profoundly sympathetic and superficially exploitative, longtime Philippine director Mauro Gia Samonte’s cautionary tale delivers true-life credibility and high melodrama fitting the stages of Greek antiquity. The question is not whether the girl is good or bad. Samonte’s film will make you ask yourself: Is she lucky, or is she doomed?