Rafael Manuel’s "Filipiñana" turns a seemingly ordinary day at a Philippine country club into a sharply funny and unsettling look at class, privilege, and exploitation.

The film follows 17-year-old Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto), who starts working as a “tee-girl,” one that places golf balls on the tee for wealthy clients. It’s a simple job, but Manuel uses it to expose the enormous gap between the people being served and those doing the serving.

What makes "Filipiñana" particularly interesting is how it balances its bleak subject matter with an unexpectedly playful visual style. There’s a distinctly Wes Anderson-like quality to the filmmaking, especially in its carefully composed frames, deadpan humor, eccentric characters, and deliberately artificial-looking situations. At times, it recalls "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel," except the whimsy is being used to highlight something considerably darker.

The film is full of odd little moments. Employees move with almost choreographed precision, wealthy guests behave with bizarre entitlement and seemingly trivial details are presented with a surreal sense of mundane importance. 

"Filipiñana" is deliberately slow and observational, with long stretches where seemingly very little happens. Some scenes feel like they're waiting for a punchline or revelation that never quite arrives, at least not in front of the camera.

Nevertheless, the patience pays off in the film's atmosphere. The sweltering golf course gradually feels less like a luxury destination and more like a carefully maintained bubble where wealth allows people to ignore the realities surrounding them. On that note, there are shades of "The White Lotus" in the way "Filipiñana" observes rich people behaving badly, but Manuel is less interested in explosive drama than in showing how normalized exploitation and class divides can become, particularly in one sequence that speaks volumes despite very little dialogue.

Agoto gives Isabel a quiet presence that fits the film's restrained approach. She isn't presented as a conventional protagonist. Her observations and reactions allow the audience to absorb the absurdity around her, as if experiencing the club vicariously through the eyes of someone who feels like they’re either as new to the setting as we are or are not supposed to be there at all.

All in all: "Filipiñana" isn't exactly a relaxing day at the country club, but its strange, Wes Anderson-inspired style makes this class-conscious satire worth checking out.