Anak (film)

The Child
The Child
Directed by	Rory Quintos
Screenplay by	Ricardo Lee; Raymond Lee;
Produced by	Charo Santos-Concio; Malou N. Santos; Trina N. Dayrit;
Starring	Vilma Santos; Claudine Barretto;
Cinematography	Joe Batac
Edited by	George Jarlego
Music by	Shaun Gaspar
Production; company	Star Cinema
Release date	May 10, 2000;
Running time	119 minutes
Country	Philippines
Language	Filipino
Box office	₱165.93 million

The Child (Anak) is a 2000 Filipino family drama film directed by Rory Quintos starring Vilma Santos and Claudine Barretto, with Joel Torre and Baron Geisler. The film was critically acclaimed by film critics. It was the Philippines' submission to the 73rd Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.^[1]^[2]

The film has been restored by ABS-CBN Film Archives. The restored version premiered on ABS-CBN's movie channel, Cinema One, on May 22, 2015.

Act Sequence[]

A woman struggling to make a better life for her family finds that her efforts have caused a problem between her and her children in this downbeat family drama. Josie is a mother of three children (Carla, Michael, and Daday) from the Philippines who takes a job in Hong Kong as a nanny for a wealthy couple for several years. She knows she can make more money in Hong Kong than she could at home, but also has qualms about how her absence will affect her children, especially when her husband died not long after she left. When Josie returns home, she has gifts for everyone and savings from her salary, which she plans to use to start a business. Her children, however, don't welcome their mother with open arms. The younger kids, Daday and Michael, are guarded around Josie, and while they eventually mend their relationship with their mother, the oldest, Carla, does nothing to disguise her resentment for what she sees as callous abandonment of her family. Carla openly challenges Josie's authority, starts dating boys she knows her mother wouldn't approve of, flaunts her burgeoning sexuality, begins using drugs, and has multiple abortions.

In the end, Carla realized what she has done and understands the reason why her mother didn't return home at the death of her father, she forgives her and changes her ways, and promises to take care of her younger siblings when she went back to Hong Kong.