I found this film moving and pleasant and sad/melancholy. I wish I liked it more but it’s certainly a nice bit of genre bending and a timely story. Rose is a Filipino-American teenager who lives in Texas and loves old school country music. She plays and sings herself but is too shy to do so in public. But then her mother is pinched by ICE and she has to figure out how to stay in the US and who she can crash with in the meantime.

It’s a charming and sweet film with a very good performance by its young lead. Smashing together country western music with an Asian immigrants tale is smart and clever. It reminds us that a person isn’t her stereotype. The title of the movie is both clever and a little cringe… but I’m sure it meant well.

I’m afraid it didn’t hold my interest for the full runtime though. I started to lose interest in the final act but I think that’s just me. Maybe the closer she gets to her country western singing career, the less I was ultimately interested. I think this is because the heart of the movie is an immigrant story, not so much a coming-of-age film for an aspiring musician. So those two narratives didn’t really fully connect for me. I suspect your results may vary.

Score: 78