Why ‘Honor Thy Father’ feels eerily current a decade later
The beauty of great cinema is that it refuses to stay in the past.
A truly powerful film has a way of creeping back into the present, demanding to be re-seen, re-felt and re-examined under whatever era we’re currently stumbling through. Case in point: Erik Matti’s “Honor Thy Father.”
Nearly a decade after it first shocked audiences with its raw portrayal of faith, family and financial ruin, the film has returned to the big screen this week. This time though, stripped to black and white and re-scored for maximum relatability to capture its new audience. It’s not just a commemorative lap around memory lane, but a resurrection that Reality MM Studio’s Dondon Monteverde and Erik Matti felt was needed. And like all good resurrections, it’s here to test whether we’ve learned anything since it first came out.
We attended the advance screening last Monday at SM Aura where we got to corner the two along with the iconic Tirso Cruz III who also stars in it. He shared with nostalgia, “I’m so excited to watch this film again because I realized it’s one movie of mine that’s 10 years old that I get to watch again on the big screen. Gusto ko makita itsura ko nung 10 years ago.”
Direk Erik was saying that they really planned to showcase the film again and they had started working on it two years ago until the 10th timely year came on, “after the pandemic we were working on it and we realized that we could show it again. So here we are.”
When “Honor Thy Father” premiered in 2015, it wasn’t a film you just watched. It was a film people endured, dissected, and carried like a bruise that opened many conversations about the political climate at the time. John Lloyd Cruz, at the height of his matinee-idol status, stripped away his leading-man sheen to embody Edgar, a man dragged by circumstance into the dangerous business of salvaging his family from financial disaster.
But this wasn’t your typical tale of debts and dues. It was a dive into the murky waters of religion with a side hustle, blind devotion, and the lengths people go to survive in a system rigged against them. Which sadly, could still mirror today’s woes.
The film courted controversy not just for its subject matter but for its timing. It came out when conversations about prosperity gospel churches, Ponzi schemes, and financial desperation were already simmering in the Filipino consciousness.
Fast-forward to 2025, and tell me that doesn’t sound familiar. There are still people here, hustling, still paying off some emotional, financial or spiritual debt that is a byproduct of a far from perfect system. Inflation may have changed the numbers, but the hunger, the faith, and the desperation. Still intact.
According to direk Erik, their move to strip away the film’s color reveals more truth. The black-and-white format doesn’t just give the film a gritty arthouse polish but it sharpens its edges. It makes the faces harder, the desperation bleaker, the moral compromises starker. Add a haunting new score and suddenly it doesn’t feel like a movie from ten years ago.
Erik, Dondon and Reality MM Studios aren’t just indulging in nostalgia here. They’re reminding us that corruption, greed and the exploitation of faith are not period pieces. They’re sadly recurring cycles. The film’s return is not just about celebrating its anniversary but is also about holding up a mirror to our current mess served in a different dish.
It’s impossible to talk about “Honor Thy Father” without talking about John Lloyd. Direk Erik takes pride that at the time, it was the first film the notable actor did outside his boy-next-door packaging in Star Cinema. This was where he had gone rogue as Edgar, and audiences weren’t sure they were ready for it. But that risk paid off as JLC delivered one of the most searing performances of his career, proving he was more than the rom-com heartthrob we thought we knew and we now know.
Here’s the tricky part about “Honor Thy Father”: it’s not just a movie. It’s a litmus test for where we are as a society. Back in 2015, audiences walked out debating whether it was too harsh, too critical, too damning.
Think about the last 10 years. Pandemic panic. Lockdowns. Conflicts. Inflation. Families torn apart by both literal and financial illness. Corruption. Watching “Honor Thy Father” today isn’t just revisiting an old film; it’s reliving wounds that never really fully healed and is reminding us why we all should not tolerate the economic, social and political realities of today.
If you saw “Honor Thy Father” back in 2015, watch it again and tell me it doesn’t feel somehow eerily current. If you didn’t, then here’s your chance to experience what it’s like when cinema punches you in the gut and refuses to apologize.
This isn’t the kind of movie you watch for escapism. It’s the kind you watch for confrontation.
In an industry often obsessed with sequels, remakes and comforting replays, “Honor Thy Father” stands as a reminder that cinema can be both entertainment and indictment. It asks hard questions. It doesn’t care if you squirm in your seat. And a decade later, it still refuses to let you off easy.
And if that feels uncomfortable, good. That’s the point. If you want to experience it again, “Honor Thy Father” is showing in SM cinemas nationwide.
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