January 1, 2023
Tricia (Jodie Sta. Maria) was a rich girl who lived in Los Angeles with her parents Walter and Linda (Michael de Mesa and Jaclyn Jose). She helped them run their assisted living business. She was about to get married to her boyfriend Matt (Rafael Rossell) and was already finalizing her choice of wedding gown. Then, Tricia caught Matt cavorting with another girl in their bathtub right before their wedding day.
Furious, she went back home to the Philippines to the house of her grandmother (Nova Villa) where she grew up. To cheer Tricia up, neighbor and childhood friend Daisy (Rochelle Pangilinan) invite Tricia to her bachelorette party which was held in a male strip club, where they met one of the strippers Gabo (Coco Martin). The entrepreneurial Gabo invited Tricia to check out their family business of providing the Ultimate Jowa Experience.
Initially this was a light-hearted rom-com romp with an outlandish premise which shifted between warm friendly Manila and cold materialistic Los Angeles. While it was fun to see Cardo Dalisay's posse become Gabo's US-based cousins, the mood eventually became unfunny, dealing with serious topics of prejudiced parents, misrepresentation of wealth, illegally working tourists and snitches who turn them in.
A big problem of this film is that Coco Martin and Jodie Sta. Maria already looked and felt too old to play Tricia and Gabo. Finding out later that Martin is already 41 and Sta. Maria 40 in real life made things even more cringy -- they ARE too old for this! Seeing Coco doing macho dancer routines (17 years after his indie film debut in "Masahista") looked too desperate. John Estrada is only 49, so playing Coco's father was a head-scratching casting decision.
Gabo was laying on his "charm" on so thick, it felt like harassment already. Did he expect Tricia to love him only after a day tour of Manila together? The main relationship conflict was something in the 50s when women should only be homebound! Just when everything is already "woke," Gabo was still living in the dark ages. Just when women are empowered, Tricia still decides to lower herself just to be with this narrow-minded misogynist. 2/10.
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