Die Beautiful (2016)

Touching story, wonderful storytelling

Die Beautiful is more than a transgender’s story. Yes, there are scenes wherein Trisha Echeverria (Paolo’s character) was looking for acceptance, joining pageants and undergoing surgery and so on. You might say, that’s the typical image of gays portrayed in films and TV series. That may be true. But, my dear friends, this is what you call life.

The film presented us with the journey of Patrick /Trisha Echeverria by showing us the many faces of life. Instead of sugar-coating, Die Beautiful gave us reality including the challenges and heartaches in life. Besides the main character’s story, they didn’t leave out the rest of the characters especially the best friend. I would say that the loyal Barbs is the glue that brings the entire story together. Why and how? Well, through the film’s wonderful storytelling.

The storytelling...
A story, no matter how great will become unnoticed if storytelling doesn’t captivate your audience. With Die Beautiful, I was captivated from the beginning. The film used an unconventional narrative structure to tell our lead character’s story. In fact, it was the right move as it explored time making the story even more interesting.

The film began by showing the audience Patrick, an innocent little boy who is being true to himself. He along with his friends are playing the role of beauty queens in a pageant while his older sister, Beth films them. Then his father arrives reprimanding Patrick’s actions and his daughter. After that, we see a bunch of makeup tools from brushes to eye shadow palettes and finally, Barbs fixing Trisha’s make up along with their two high school friends.

Since the beginning, the audience already knew the main character died. From there, we were treated on an amazing roller-coaster narrative from past to present and back to past while meeting the people in Tricia’s life.

I have to say Die Beautiful also has a beautiful ending. On the last night of the wake, people were waiting for the last makeup transformation. Being the best friend, Barbs chose to show the one and true face of Tricia, the most beautiful person he has ever known.

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