The leads are all writers-academicians. Eula Valdes as Issey and Noni Buencamino as Jimmy have both been teaching at UP for 20 years. Jimmy has been writing a book about a missing mythical sword for the longest time. He meets a diwata in the mountains, Maxene Eigenmann, who appears totally nude to him and they have a sex scene where both of them are stark naked.
Issey acts as a finalist in a writing workshop and has an affair with her godson, Martin del Rosario, also an aspiring writer, but they’re just given a symbolic love scene on the beach with the waves caressing them. Martin has a questionable relationship with another young writer, Sandino Martin, who deliberately acts to be weird. But what they have between them is never fully articulated, especially in their last scene together when they meet again in the toilet. You may want to draw your own conclusions as the movie enjoys wallowing in ambiguity.
Though you might find the movie tedious with its so many “laylay” moments, you cannot fault the acting of Eula Valdes. She’s totally believable as a creative writing professor, speaking all her lines in English persuasively. Not every local actress can do this convincingly. And she looks like she understands her role perfectly, whether it’s in a simple scene where she’s soaping her husband’s under the shower or getting drunk and throwing up or pooping in the toilet while delivering some dialogue. It’s a difficult role but she really interpreted it superbly. It's said that "Dagitab" means "sparks". Sadly, the movie didn't produce any sparks at all for us.
