February 19, 2023
Some time after the death of his long-suffering wife Charo (Cherry Pie Picache), Don Valentin Esposo (John Arcilla) invited all ten of his mistresses to his palatial mansion. Aside from celebrating his birthday, he also wanted to bid them farewell and announce his upcoming marriage to the new woman in his life. His head housekeeper Lilith (Eugene Domingo) and her platoon of maids have been tasked to keep everyone pampered and happy.
They were: the first one Magenta (Carmi Martin), the pawnshop owner Babet (Pokwang), the beauty doctor Helga (Agot Isidro), her former assistant Diva (Kris Bernal), the fortune teller Aura (Arci Munoz), the online meme celebrity Because (Adrianna So), the perpetual beauty contestant Sparkle (Kate Alejandrino), the K-drama fan Moon Young (Sharlene San Pedro), the mysterious Lady G (Christian Bables), and the latest one Coco (Iana Bernardez).
However when the grand party that night abruptly ended because of a sudden death that looked like murder, everyone in the house is considered a suspect.
Writer-director Jun Lana was inspired by Agatha Christie when concocting this comedic murder-mystery. Many of Dame Agatha's classic elements were there -- a gathering of people in a fancy remote location, all of whom all have an axe to grind with the person who gets murdered, making all of them possible suspects as the perpetrator of the crime. However, I thought that he might have bitten off more than he could chew for this one.
When I got news about this latest Jun Lana project, I had just seen an Italian movie called "Seven Women and a Murder" (Alessandro Genovesi, 2022) on Netflix, which in itself was based on a French movie called "8 Women" (François Ozon, 2002). Basically the same scenario, eight women gathered in one big house when the patriarch was found murdered, and the women try to figure out among themselves who the killer was.
Lana had the boldness to go further and set the number of disgruntled mistresses at an ambitious ten. This meant that he would have to give each one a good backstory to make them viable as suspects. He was not able to, he had no time. Aside from Magenta, Babet, Helga and Lady G, none of the other mistresses even mattered at all. Lilith and her murder-mystery-fan maid Chiclet (Donna Cariaga) had more significance.
Lana was also unable to have all the mistresses engage among themselves equally. Mostly, one mistress would only engage in catty arguments specifically with one other rival mistress -- Magenta vs. Babet, Helga vs. Diva, Because vs. Sparkle. Lady G always played it dark, cool and nonchalant. Aura's wacky weirdness was simply all over the place. The youngest ones, Moon Young and Coco would always stick together, but are drowned out in all the hubbub.
I wished the actual execution of the crime could have been developed more carefully and logically. Can one person actually do all of those things by herself? Instead, we had to sit through several useless minutes of the mistresses bitching among themselves and screaming over expensive gifts. In contrast with the rest of the film, the final act became far too serious with a rather self-serving and self-exculpating message.
This film held the distinction of the being the first Filipino original movie produced by Amazon Prime Video. With all the hype, I guess expectations can run too high, and hence may disappoint discriminating murder-mystery fans. However, easily the best aspect of this film would have to be the visual spectacle created by the lavish, colorful, and outlandish haute couture of the mistresses designed by costume designer Jaylo Conanan. 5/10.
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