"Small Voices" is an old story in a new setting.
The film is a Philippine import that tells the story of a young woman, Melinda (the up-and-coming Alessandra de Rossi), who journeys to a small village in the Philippines to teach in a place where "only the rich can afford to dream."
The movie is beautifully cast and the scenery grabs your attention. The story, however, runs into some problems with its formulaic themes and slow pacing.
Melinda arrives just as the old village teacher is leaving for the big city hoping to catch her big break. Melinda is young, opportunistic and naãve about the way things work in this particular village. She tries to do some genuine good for the children, but seems stymied at every turn.
She finds out about a big music competition in the city, involving all the schools. She wants the children to enter the contest and tries to get them to participate, but it seems as though every child's parents demand that they be home immediately after school to help in the fields.
One of the mothers wants to allow her sons to work with Melinda, but says she has only one school shirt for the two of them and she is afraid of being embarrassed at the rehearsals.
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Melinda vows it will not be a problem and enlists the mother's help in convincing the other parents to let their children compete. Predictably, most of the kids are eventually allowed to contribute and attend the competition.
With Melinda carrying around a flute and the central theme of the movie being the musical contest, one would guess the film would involve some dancing and melodies, right? Well, it doesn't really, not until the last quarter of the movie when the competition is slid to the back burner of the plot machine for a brief diversion into the local political scene.
This criticism is not meant to discount these socially-minded scenes. They are very touching and well acted, especially on the part of the two kids, Popoy (Bryan Homecillo) and Obet (Pierro Rodriguez). Still, the action feels formulaic and the reactions come across as if some of the actors are on autopilot.
The end of the movie is so contrived and saccharin-sweet that it almost comes across as a dream. Could such a tidy resolution have happened this way in real life? Sure, but the chances of it occurring in what we have so far been forced to accept as a harsh reality are slim. The ending does not correspond with the rest of the film. It's almost as though you've watched two halves of two separate movies. It's like giving Ethan Frome a Hollywood ending, complete with last-minute saves and tear-jerking ballads. It's nice and it hits all the notes it was designed to, but it doesn't work on the same level as the rest of the film.
