Netflix: Review of ENTITLED: Tasteless and Tawdry

July 31, 2022

Belinda (Alex Gonzaga) was young woman with a foul mouth and crude uncouth behavior who hailed from the poor village of Nalapok. She was suddenly thrust into the social high life when she was found and accepted by her long-lost biological father, billionaire hotel magnate Don Enrico Buenavista (Johnny Revilla). 

While his wife Matilda (Ara Mina) welcomed Belinda warmly, their haughty younger daughter Caitlyn (Andi Abaya) played cruel pranks on her. Dashing attorney Jacob (JC de Vera) oriented Belinda with the hotel business, while homely Yaya Monina (Melai Cantiveros) was assigned to be her personal assistant. 

You can already predict how this movie was going to proceed right from the very beginning. You can already see that Belinda will be an awkward fish out of water and she will be a source of embarrassment for her father. You can see who is the real villain of the story from the get-go, there was not much surprise about the ulterior motives. 

You can see how, despite their initial animosity about Belinda's terribly crass ways, Jacob will fall in love with her, Monina will be a good friend, and Caitlyn will change her ways -- no matter unlikely those things would happen. Don Enrico is too good to be true, but you knew something bad will happen to break his trust and she'd eventually win it back. 

Alex Gonzaga goes all out slapstick as Belinda, and frankly, it was tough to watch her without cringing. All her over-the-top facial expressions looked like she was going to barf anytime, not funny at all. Those indecent words coming out of her mouth were excessively vulgar. This tawdry shameless character was an insult to girls who come from poor neighborhoods. 

For the transformation of uncultured Belay of Nalapok to sophisticated Belinda Buenavista, we did not get the usual make-over scenes we see in other films like this, but unfortunately we were not spared a gross Brazilian waxing scene. That a crude film like this became Netflix #1 movie overnight says a lot about the current state of Filipino film appreciation. 1/10.