January 24, 2023
Jason Inigo "Jiggs" Gatchalian (Gab Lagman) just won the Best Director award at the Cinemasigla indie film festival held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Pam delos Reyes (Kim Molina) had been Jiggs' loyal girlfriend since the start of his career. However, on this night of his victory, Jiggs decided to break up with her because he felt that they were not on the same level anymore as they hardly spoke the same language already.
Furious and hurt, Pam cried her heart out to her best friends Gene (Prince Stefan), Belle (Andrea Babierra) and younger sister Tin (Heart Ryan). They decided that the best strategy to get Jiggs jealous was to hire a guy to pretend to be a rich film producer head over heels in love with Pam. After going through a number of candidates, they finally decided to go with street-side coconut vendor Francisco "Isko" Mangahas (Jerald Napoles).
The conflict of this love story was hardly new. We seen various romcoms before tackle the story of a dumped party desperately trying everything to get their lost love back, only to learn to love themselves more in the process. However, this particular plot asked us to suspend quite a bit of disbelief. Pam choosing someone like Isko in order to get Jiggs jealous totally defied logic. Director Benedict Mique knew it and wisely just glossed over the issue.
Promising leading man Gab Lagman cross over from online jungle of Vivamax into the mainstream big screen. However, despite his movie star good looks, he tended to still be very conscious and tentative in his acting, resulting in a wooden portrayal of Jiggs. Beside the natural comic flair of Kim Molina and Jerald Napoles, poor Lagman did not stand a chance at all to shine. He should definitely be given another film to prove his worth as an actor.
The best reason to watch this film was the easygoing and naughty chemistry between Molina and Napoles, forged from their "Rak of Aegis" days on the PETA stage, to the previous romcoms they've done together, as well as their real-life romance. It was good to see Pam run a successful online business, call her own shots and accept consequences. However, there was really no suspense nor surprise with who Pam will end up with here. 5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment