March 15, 2024
Pinky (Uzziel Delamide) was an Aeta teenager who had been chosen by the nuns to study at the Josephine Cojuangco Tech Voc high school. She was more obsessed with reading romance pocketbooks than her schoolwork. One day, their teacher Ma'am Kristine (Donna Cariaga) announced about the upcoming Agri-Quizbee. When the teacher said there was going to a "Lab" test, Pinky thought she said "Love" test and volunteered to join.
Her first meeting with her quizbee partner, an ambitious achiever Genesis (Potchi Angeles), was awkward, but they eventually got along. Knowing that this quiz could give him a scholarship he needed for college, he had committed to memory all the scientific names of tropical plants in the Philippines. A silent introvert, Genesis coped with stress by looking at slides of cells and microbes through the microscope.
The way writer-director Carlo Obispo wrote and told this story of high school life and puppy love in a most childlike and entertaining manner. This was such a fun watch as it can bring back a lot of high school memories, especially the silly (playing FLAMES with crush's name) or cheesy (the first girl you gave flowers to) ones. For me, I joined quiz-bees before, so I can relate with the tension during review prep and competition proper. (During the film, I was able to recognize Ulasimang Bato and still recalled its scientific name, haha!)
True blue Aeta teenager Uzziel Delamide radiated such a winsome personality onscreen. Her being an Aeta enabled Obispo to address not only their traditional medicinal herbs, but also serious problems Aetas have because of their elders' illiteracy. She and Potchi Angeles may be acting neophytes, but they carried the story very well, even generating romantic thrills when they would do something cute together. To keep things interesting, Obispo introduced a pretty, brainy classmate Lovely (Barbara Miguel) midway to throw in a wrench.
As Pinky's class adviser Ms. Kristine Mangrobang, Donna Cariaga was so lovable with her faulty choice of English words and her interchanging consonant sounds. (I know this may not look good for public school teachers, but it was cute and in the spirit of fun.) In fact, the louder hoots of romantic thrills were heard in scenes of Ms. Kristine with her good-looking co-teacher Mr. Kurt Dalang (Ely Cellan). One delightful scene between Cariaga and Cellan was ripped right out of a K-drama which sent the entire audience howling with glee.
This is one of the six feature films included in the newly-launched Puregold CinePanalo Film Festival, running at Gateway Cineplex from April 15-19, 2024. With the festival theme of "Mga Kuwentong Panalo ng Buhay," we are expecting films with positive messages. Festival director Chris Cahilig had said in a statement that "CinePanalo aims to leave audiences with a warm fuzzy feeling," and, true to his word, "A Lab Story" did exact that. 8/10
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