This article is about the Singaporean film. For the Philippine province, see Iloilo. For its capital, see Iloilo City. For other uses, see Iloilo (disambiguation).
InSingapore during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Lim family welcomes their Filipina domestic helper, Teresa (colloquially Terry), who like many other Filipinas has come in search of a better life. The father, Teck, works in sales for a glass company; the pregnant mother, Hwee Leng, works as a secretary in a downsizing shipping company; and the ten-year-old son, Jiale, is a troubled delinquent. At first, Jiale and Terry exhibit a troubled relationship. Tensions between them rise, resulting in Jiale one day climbing over the school fence at dismissal time just to avoid his maid, who comes every day to fetch him.
When Teck loses his sales job, he conceals it from his wife. Desperate, he accepts a temporary job as a security guard monitoring an egg farm. As he continues to lose money in the stock market, he acknowledges their losses to his wife, who lambastes him. As the family's finances begin to descend deeper, Jiale and Terry begin to kindle a relationship, sparking his mother's jealousy and feelings of emotional neglect by her son. Hwee Leng attends a motivational seminar, where she is moved by the optimistic words of the speaker and purchases his motivational books and CDs. He turns out to be a fraud, causing her to break down amidst their crippling economy.
Jiale shows high intellect and cunning in his obsessive calculation of past winning lottery numbers, which he catalogues in his schoolbook. One day, after being taunted by another boy that Terry only loves him as part of her job, he pushes the boy against a bathroom wall, hospitalizing him. Threatened with expulsion and the school's administration unable to contact his parents, Terry arrives to plead for mercy on his behalf. Hwee Leng shows up, reminding Terry that she is Jiale's mother. Later, Jiale is caned in front of the school assembly while Terry watches concernedly.
After the family car is sold for scrap and Teck is fired from his job for committing a mistake, the Lim family acknowledges they can no longer afford to keep Terry employed. Desperate to keep her, Jiale uses his savings to purchase lottery tickets but loses. He becomes despondent, cutting a lock of Terry's hair during a tense farewell. Holding onto his cassette player, Jiale listens to Terry's favorite song, "Kahapon at Pag-ibig" by Asin, with his father in the hospital as Hwee Leng gives birth to a baby girl.
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8.0/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Quietly compassionate and rich in detail, Ilo Ilo is a strikingly mature debut from writer-director Anthony Chen."[9]OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[10]
Ilo Ilo received positive reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was later awarded the Camera d'Or award, an award which recognizes the best debut feature film in the competition.[6] It received six nominations at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards[11] and won four: Best Film, Best New Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Yeo Yann Yann.[12]
