December 23, 2022
Atty. Rowena Ramos (Sunshine Cruz) was a successful lawyer, a very respected woman of power in her field. Even if she was still beautiful and glamorous at age 45, she was still very insecure about her artist husband Oscar Ramos (Allen Dizon), who had been keeping his distance from her lately. She was also having trouble connecting with her teenage son Charles (Karl Aquino) who was constantly getting involved in fights.
As he was preparing for his coming exhibit, Oscar was constantly in his studio with nude female models who pose for his paintings. Meanwhile, Atty. Ramos got to know former escort Beth delos Reyes (Angelica Cervantes), who was the mistress of one of her clients. The distressed wife in the good lawyer got the idea of hiring Beth to seduce her husband, in order to find out if Oscar would actually bite her bait.
The screenplay was again written by Vivamax star Quinn Carrillo. This is her fourth script produced this year alone, so that is very good for her. This time around, she only had a cameo role as a bartender. Her Atty. Ramos delivered a strong feministic message. She will not lower herself to satisfy the fragile egos of the men around her, her husband included. However, you will also feel conflicting sentiments about strong women in other scenes.
The men here were all shown to be cheaters, liars, lusty, irresponsible, prone to violence. Carrillo gave them stereotypical chauvinistic statements about what women should or should not do. We hear them first from their brutally-frank friend Ryan Castro (Mark Dionisio), whose wife did not seem to mind, even if it triggered Rowena to say her piece and walk out. Of course inevitably, Rowena would also hear these words straight from Oscar himself.
With her patrician beauty, Sunshine Cruz can do these classy powerful women easily. However, it would be better if she reined in her exaggerated theatrical reactions that did not fit her ice queen persona. Allen Dizon was better when he was playing Oscar as artist, the characterization felt genuine, than he was as erring husband or permissive father. Angelica Cervantes's acting improved over her first lead role in "Biyak."
Just a couple of months ago, Mac Alejandre's "Selina's Gold" came out with a twist reminiscent of Park Chang-wook's "Oldboy" (2003). This time around, Carrillo and director Louis Ignacio also came up with their own variation of the "Oldboy" twist here. The revelation here actually had triple the repercussions of "Oldboy," but this was sadly wasted because it was too dependent of pure chance and coincidence, not smarter plotting. 4/10.
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