Die Beautiful 2016

Trisha Echevarria is a transgender woman whose father strongly opposes her, pushing her to leave home and move in with her best friend Barbs. The film centers on Trisha’s life as it unfolds largely at her wake, following the sudden illness that claims her life soon after she is crowned Binibining Gay Pilipinas. In the days of mourning, Trisha’s makeup artistry becomes a continuous, intimate ritual: through Barbs’ skilled hands, she transforms into a different famous woman each day. This ongoing wake-time makeover mirrors the bond the two shared in life, a shared passion that brought them together long before tragedy struck.

The wake is crowded with visitors who illuminate various strands of Trisha’s story. Iza Calzado, who crowned Trisha in life, drops by during one of the transformations. Flora, the funeral parlor owner, gets swept up in the moment and posts a selfie of Trisha in full Miley Cyrus makeup, a post that goes viral and turns the wake into an online spectacle, much to Barbs’ dismay. The presence of couture Eugene Domingo adds a dramatic touch: the designer arrives with a white gown meant for a future transformation as Julia Roberts from Runaway Bride, suggesting how deeply the wake doubles as a stage for identity and memory.

As the film unfolds through a series of flashbacks, we see Trisha’s life before the wake. In her teenage years, then known as Patrick, she attends the same school as Barbs and harbors a crush on basketball player Migs. After a night out with Migs, Patrick/Trisha is assaulted by Migs and his friends, leaving him physically and emotionally marked. Patrick’s father, who also brings along his sister Beth, confronts the hospital scene with anger, and the family strain is clear: the tragedy begins to fracture their bond, and the fallout intensifies when Patrick embraces a new identity as Trisha Echevarria and is subsequently disowned by his father.

With little to fall back on, Trisha finds refuge with Barbs, who welcomes her into a chosen family that includes Barbs’ mother, Mother Celine. Trisha and Barbs drift into beauty-pageant culture, a space where Trisha keeps entering competitions despite frequent losses in the Q&A portions. In time, Trisha undergoes breast augmentation, hoping the change will finally help her win—and it does, at least in the eyes of a crowd hungry for spectacle.

Romance enters in fits and starts. Miko, a young gay club dancer, becomes a romantic chapter, and Trisha even helps pay for Miko’s rhinoplasty. The relationship falters when Trisha discovers Miko’s affair with a gay beauty-parlor owner. Later, Trisha meets Jesse at a bar; though Jesse is married, they begin an affair that complicates Trisha’s feelings and life. Jesse’s later confession—and his leukemia diagnosis—reaches Trisha through a hospital visit, revealing that their meeting wasn’t accidental. He admits to having been part of the group that harmed Trisha in adolescence, and although he says he grew to love her, the revelation devastates her.

Backstage at Binibining Gay Pilipinas, Trisha delivers a poised, practiced answer to a recurring question: if she could die and come back, she would choose to be nobody but herself. The moment underscores a central theme of the film: the wish to be seen as one’s true self, even when fame and transformation blur the lines between performance and real life. Trisha wins the pageant but dies soon afterward from a cerebral aneurysm.

In the morgue, Trisha’s father and his sister arrive, and a clash over how Trisha should be buried unfolds. The father orders the removal of Trisha’s breast implants, but Beth disagrees. The family’s disagreement peaks as the father insists Trisha be dressed in a traditional barong Tagalog, a look that feels like a final attempt to reclaim his son’s memory. Barbs, Paola, and Erica—Erica—are deeply disappointed and help coordinate a way to honor Trisha’s wishes. They work with Beth to secretly give Trisha the burial she would have wanted, away from the pressure of conventional expectations.

As the wake comes to a close, Barbs announces that the final transformation will reveal who Trisha truly was: the glamorous, joyful person her friends knew in life. The film ends with a closing image of a younger version of Trisha walking through the wake, a quiet, hopeful counterpoint to the public spectacle that marked her life. Throughout Trisha’s wake, the many celebrity-inspired looks — across moments of Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé — underscore the enduring theme: appearance can illuminate inner truth, but it is the person beneath the makeup who remains. The story gives us a nuanced portrait of a life lived on the edge of visibility, belonging, and the relentless search to be authentically seen.