Lingua Franca
By Andrea Thompson
Urban isolation isn’t a new theme, but the protagonist of the tender drama “Lingua Franca” has a damn good reason to feel not just sequestered, but under siege. Olivia (Isabel Sandoval) is an undocumented Filipino transwoman living in Brighton Beach neighborhood in Brooklyn, and she is under constant threat of violence; not from any individual, but rather, an entire system built on her dehumanization.
Watching it, I was reminded of a similar film, “The Garden Left Behind,” which in fact screened in the Film Girl Film Festival, and also followed an undocumented transwoman in New York City. But where Tina (Carlie Guevara) struggled to fathom individual intentions and their potential for harm, Olivia is facing far more sinister forces she is unable to predict, and which would deport her on a whim.
It is deportation rather than death which is Olivia’s ultimate fear, and Sandoval manages to capture the quiet terror of that word, one which is often, and very casually, tossed around by those who are wholly unaware of what it means for those it threatens to catch in its ever-widening maw. And Olivia is constantly aware that she could be literally snatched off the street at any moment with no consequences to her abductors.
Even the tenuous stability she’s achieved perversely heightens her anxiety that it could all be taken from her. Unlike other transgender stories, Olivia has already transitioned, is mostly seen as a woman by the world at large, and has a mostly reliable source of income as the kind of caregiver we all wish could be looking after our loved ones.
Lingua Franca
But it can, and often does, feel like a razor’s edge to Olivia even at the best of times, and Isabel Sandoval, who writes and directs in addition to playing the lead, emphasizes this tension with muted colors even as the characters and extras array themselves in brightness, as if attempting to deny the darkness which threatens to envelop their lives. Even home barely serves as a refuge, with the unsettling silence in the most intimate of spaces stretching on just enough to leave us wondering if there’s a shadowy threat lurking just beyond our vision. Which for Olivia, there is, perhaps even in plain sight.
It can be difficult not to define such a character by her pain, and Sandoval, who is a trans woman herself, takes care not to make Olivia a symbol, even when Trump’s voice is heard as he encourages everyone to give in to their worst instincts, only to be cut off as Olivia reaches her destination. Such politics may play a role in her life, but neither the film or Olivia define themselves by them.
And it doesn’t stop Olivia from yearning for more, as we discover shortly after she meets Alex (Eamon Farren), the adult grandson of the elderly Russian woman Olivia looks after. The two have more in common than they initially appear, Alex hailing from an immigrant background himself, and also feeling lonely despite his so-called friends, who are mostly toxic bro types he is unable to confide in. Alex may project confidence, but he is vulnerable in a way men are never supposed to be, struggling to maintain his sobriety after a stint in rehab. His and Olivia’s eventual connection is more than a meeting of souls though, with Olivia not only having some hot and heavy fantasies shortly after meeting him, but the two actually having passionate sex that is actually pretty sexy.
It seems like the perfect way for Olivia to combine love and security rather than saving up for a green card marriage of convenience. But Alex also royally screws up, telling her that a masked intruder was responsible for her stolen belongings rather than his friend searching for easy money, increasing Olivia’s fears of deportation.
Lingua Franca
It’s especially cruel given how much Alex is privy to Olivia’s terror of the ICE, and when Alex does eventually propose, Sandoval cranks up the swooning music to romcom levels, underscoring how their life together is a fantasy. It seems strange for Olvia to hesitate at being offered what she’s basically been spending the entire film searching for, but as Sandolval said in an interview with The Cut, “At that moment, Olivia becomes more than a trans woman looking for love or an undocumented immigrant looking for papers...It’s Olivia’s journey toward agency and dignity and the ability to determine the course of her own life.”
That taste of love leaves Olivia wondering if there isn’t something even better than she initially dreamed, and the film’s ending, which leaves her in an ambiguous state but committed to her own version of a happy ending, is nevertheless tinged with melancholy. Life will go on, “Lingua Franca” indicates, sometimes for no other reason than that’s what it does until it stops.
