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Paul Emmanuel Enicola

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Paul Enicola is an independent film critic based in the Philippines, and is a member of FIPRESCI and Society of Filipino Film Reviewers. His work can be found at The Movie Buff, The Asian Cut, and Movie-Blogger. Find Paul @PaulEnicola

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Sunshine (2024) B EDIT “A film that relishes discomfort, one that forces us to confront the silences we’ve learned to live with: around abortion, around reproductive rights, around what we teach our daughters (and sons) about sex, choice, and consequence.” – The Movie Buff Jan 20, 2026 Full Review Ella McCay (2025) 22% D EDIT “Watching "Ella McCay" feels like being handed several potentially interesting movies at once and being asked to pretend they form a coherent whole.” – The Movie Buff Jan 16, 2026 Full Review Sentimental Value (2025) 97% A- EDIT “"Sentimental Value" articulates a particular pain: knowing someone loves you in the only way they know how, while also knowing that love never arrived in the form you needed.” – The Movie Buff Jan 14, 2026 Full Review Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) 66% B EDIT “There’s something undeniably compelling about watching Cameron operate at this scale.... This is blockbuster filmmaking as an endurance test and visual symphony, often at the same time.” – The Movie Buff Dec 16, 2025 Full Review Die My Love (2025) 74% B+ EDIT “"Die My Love" is a difficult film. It’s sometimes frustrating. It occasionally overplays its hand. But it’s also bracingly honest about how isolation, emotional negligence, and undiagnosed mental illness can combine into something catastrophic. ” – The Movie Buff Dec 14, 2025 Full Review No Other Choice (2025) 97% 4/5 EDIT “No Other Choice is the kind of film that feels ripped from today’s headlines, even though it’s based on a novel from 1997... Park Chan-wook has made a film that’s darkly funny, viscerally uncomfortable, and disturbingly prescient.” – Movie-Blogger.com Dec 13, 2025 Full Review Merrily We Roll Along (2025) 95% B+ EDIT “A version that breathes on screen, holds its shape, and honors the late Stephen Sondheim with a clarity he would have been massively proud of.” – The Movie Buff Dec 6, 2025 Full Review Hamnet (2025) 86% A- EDIT “I’m fascinated by movies that delicately examine how their characters circle around mourning, or whether they dive into it headfirst. "Hamnet" does both.” – The Movie Buff Nov 29, 2025 Full Review The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025) 95% A- EDIT “Kaouther Ben Hania has made a docudrama that refuses to let you look away, and in doing so, she’s created one of the most vital and necessary pieces of cinema in recent memory.” – The Movie Buff Nov 27, 2025 Full Review The Mastermind (2025) 90% B+ EDIT “[The Mastermind]'s both a heist movie where the heist is the least interesting part, and a character study of a man who isn’t interesting enough to deserve one. And somehow it all works.” – The Movie Buff Nov 26, 2025 Full Review A Place of Absence (2025) B+ EDIT “What makes "A Place of Absence" work for me isn’t simply its exploration of grief, but its recognition of how disappearance transcends nationality...the emotional landscape is shared even if the histories differ. ” – The Movie Buff Nov 23, 2025 Full Review A Miracle (2024) 4/5 EDIT “[Diokno's] innovative storytelling ensures the film doesn’t feel like a pro-shot of a stage play but a fully realized reimagining that harnesses the intimacy of theater and the grandeur of cinema.” – Movie-Blogger.com Nov 10, 2025 Full Review Quezon (2025) B- EDIT “If Tarog’s goal was to make history feel alive again, then he has succeeded—sometimes to the point of discomfort. As cinema, “Quezon” is impressive. As history, it’s provocative. And as myth, it’s necessary.” – The Movie Buff Oct 25, 2025 Full Review Dear Stranger (2025) C+ EDIT “Mariko’s film doesn’t solve the riddle of love across cultures or languages, but it lingers like the memory of a conversation you wish you’d managed to finish. ” – The Movie Buff Sep 26, 2025 Full Review Ky Nam Inn (2025) A- EDIT ““Ky Nam Inn” belongs to the tradition of romantic cinema that believes love is as much about what it speaks and what it leaves unsaid. ” – The Movie Buff Sep 26, 2025 Full Review One Battle After Another (2025) 94% 5/5 EDIT “[Anderson] doesn’t just glance toward the present—he charges into it, headlong and unapologetic...swapping the gauzy comfort of period detail for the raw immediacy of a contemporary America riven by fear, racism, and a new strain of authoritarian bravado.” – Movie-Blogger.com Sep 23, 2025 Full Review Lucky Lu (2025) 3/5 EDIT “For viewers who respond to character-first cinema about the costs of making a life in a city that constantly recalibrates who belongs, [Lucky Lu] is worth your time. ” – The Asian Cut Sep 16, 2025 Full Review Aki (2025) B EDIT “If you saw “Stellar” at TIFF a few years back, you’ll recognize Naponse’s fascination with the cosmos and the bonds of community. With “Aki,”...she trades the magical-realist romance of that film for something sparer and, in its own way, more daring.” – The Movie Buff Sep 12, 2025 Full Review Amoeba (2025) 100% B EDIT ““Amoeba” is, after all, about growing up in fits and starts, about identities that don’t quite align, about wanting more than the world will allow.” – The Movie Buff Sep 11, 2025 Full Review Magellan (2025) 85% 4/5 EDIT “A hypnotic, uncompromising vision with a shorter runtime and more approachable than Diaz’s eight-hour epics, yet no less resonant.” – The Asian Cut Sep 10, 2025 Full Review Renoir (2025) 87% 3/5 EDIT “Hayakawa’s coming-of-age leaves behind something subtler: the impression of a summer where life and death pressed against each other, and a girl who tried to make space for both.” – The Asian Cut Sep 10, 2025 Full Review Mama (2025) C+ EDIT ““Mama” isn’t perfect; its dramatics can be too on the nose, and its narrative turns sometimes play out exactly as you’d expect. But in its best moments, it captures the loneliness of being foreign everywhere—even in your own home. ” – The Movie Buff Sep 7, 2025 Full Review One Hit Wonder (2025) C+ EDIT “The most accurate way to describe “One Hit Wonder”: a solid mixtape trapped inside a lackluster movie.” – The Movie Buff Aug 26, 2025 Full Review The Naked Gun (2025) 87% 3.5/5 EDIT “I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone—God help the viewer who walks in expecting subtlety—but if you surrender to the idiocy, you might discover, as I did, that stupidity can be its own kind of bliss.” – Movie-Blogger.com Aug 19, 2025 Full Review Materialists (2025) 77% 2.5/5 EDIT “Perhaps the fairest way to see Materialists is as a transitional work. Song isn’t repeating herself, which is admirable; she’s instead simply trying to map the economics of intimacy in a way few filmmakers have dared. ” – Movie-Blogger.com Aug 17, 2025 Full Review
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