November 19, 2022
For everyone, Dali (Christian Bables) is gay. He wore his hair red, had a stylish fashion sense, followed a strict facial care routine. He designed gowns for the boutique of his mom Gemma (Katya Santos). He does hair and makeup in Out of the Baks, the salon of his gay father Jaime (Keempee de Leon). Along with BFFs Marga (J-mee Katanyag) and Romy (Lei Ramos), he dressed up their friend Analyn (Donna Cariaso) for local pageants.
While backstage during a beauty contest, Dali bumped into Angel (Iana Bernardez), and spilled his drink on her evening gown. When he caught a glimpse of Angel's face, it was instant love at first sight. To make up for staining her dress, he transformed it from plain white to flamboyant colorful right there on the spot. The next day, Dali surprised his friends and family when he declared that he was in love, and was actually straight.
For this month of November 2022, there were two films by director Perci Intalan released, and they could not any further apart in theme and treatment. While "Livescream" was dark, violent and perverse, this one "Mahal Kita Beksman" was bright, cheerful and well, gay. Intalan had the same technical team behind him in both films, Emerzon Texzon for music, Carmela Danao for production design and Moises Zee for cinematography -- versatile artists all.
Fatrick Tabada (best known for writing the riotous 2016 family road trip movie "Patay Na Si Hesus") came up with an insightful script that tries to untangle the frequently confusing threads of the LGBTQ spectrum. His character of Dali is an interesting study of this intricacy, and Christian Bables (already acclaimed for his gay roles in "Die Beautiful" and "Big Night") gives another delightfully winning yet distinctly sensitive portrayal here.
Keempee de Leon went all-out flashy in his portrayal of Dali's unapologetically-gay father, who lived with his wife Gemma and his partner Boyet. Iana Bernardez, who had played an elusive muse before in "Gusto Kita with All My Hypothalamus" (2018), was beautiful, but had iffy romantic chemistry with Bables, who even looked prettier than her in some scenes. J-mee Katanyag made the most of Marga's confession scene, one of the best scenes in the film.
The film had plenty of fun celebrating stereotypically gay activities with Dali's swishy friends, like fashion, cosmetology, volleyball, while also poking fun at stereotypically male activities with Angel's macho brothers, like cars, gym, basketball. However, to also provide balance, it also came up with some memorable, well-written scenes with thought-provoking insights about being straight and the essence of being a man. 8/10.
Ali
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