Starring Sharon Cuneta and John Estrada. In Tagalog and English (no English subtitles). Now playing at the Granville 7 until July 10.

Multi-award-winning actor-singer Sharon Cuneta made the right move by making a movie with Chito S. Roño, a respected and experienced Filipino director, about a subject close to the hearts of Filipinos: the lowly and socially invisible foreign-based caregivers. They have kept the Philippine economy afloat with their remittances so much that they have been named by the government as Bagong Bayani (New Heroes).

The theme of Filipino caregivers in foreign lands, however, isn’t new. Previous Tagalog films have examined the lives of Filipino workers and immigrants in New York City, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Milan. These films addressed issues such as alienation, racism, and why Filipinos seek offshore employment.

The caregiver in this new offering is Sarah (Cuneta), a languishing provincial teacher of English whose husband (who had a failed business venture in Manila) works as a male nurse in London. Leaving her teenage son behind with her mother, she relocates to the U.K., where she experiences harsh working conditions, limited employment opportunities and educational certification, and a bad marriage to a spineless husband.

Cuneta is luminous with her realistic portrayal of a working homemaker facing numerous life decisions. The well-written Tagalog and English script doesn’t suffer from the excessive high-tension melodrama so common in Philippine cinema, and the film also benefits from high production values. Although many Filipinos will identify strongly with the characters, the twist ending may surprise conservative viewers.

If anything else, Caregiver encapsulates the maturation of contemporary Filipino cinema as it avoids portraying Filipinos as fatalistic victims or submissive losers. In fact, this touching domestic drama is a loving tribute to Filipina womanhood: her courage and humanity, her dignity and determination, her adaptability and resiliency, her inner strength and hard work.

After all, the Philippines is a matriarchal society.