Netflix: Review of INSTANT DADDY: Caring to Commit

January 28, 2024

Valentin Roxas (Alexander Lucas Martin) was raised by his Tatay Lito (Jao Mapa) alone, when his mother left them to work abroad when he was seven. To maintain a sense of normalcy, Lito wrote young Val letters supposedly from his mother promising that she would come back. However, as a teenager, Val (Kurt delos Santos) knew she was never going to come back, and told his father that he wanted to go to Manila with his friend Winston (Rabin Angeles). 

Years later, Val (Jerald Napoles) worked as a taxi driver in a fleet operated by Winston, who was now a transwoman named Whitney (MC Muah) with her boyfriend Rico (Nikko Natividad). Val was a playboy who had quickie affairs with several women. One night, an ex-lover Julie (Danita Paner) left her baby girl in Val's taxi, and never came back to get her. After his initial reluctance, Val accepted the girl as his daughter, naming her Marisol (Althea Ruedas). 

This film was an adaptation of the hit Mexican comedy-drama film "Instructions Not Included" (2013), co-written and directed by its lead star Eugenio Derbez. After Julie left the baby at Val's bachelor pad, Val had to illegally cross the Tijuana border all the way to Los Angeles where Julie last worked as an aerobics instructor. Because his daring rescue of the baby about to fall into the pool was witnessed by a film director, Val was hired as a stuntman.

Aside from these details, the basic story of Val, Julie and their daughter (named Maggie in the original) was the same. In addition, in this Filipino adaptation written by Penzer Baterna, Val was given a coterie of loyal friends around him to help him raise Mira. Aside from Whitney, Rico and fellow taxi drivers (reminiscent of "Miracle in Cell No. 7"), Val also had a childhood crush, Kate (Ryza Cenon), who liked him back, but he did not want to commit.  

Comparing the two versions I've seen, the performances of Napoles and Ruedas felt more sincere, their chemistry more heartwarming, as built up by director Crisanto Aquino, making the final twist even more heart-wrenching. In both films, the medical aspect of the story was purposefully unclear, but the Filipino version had the better approach. However, the disease entity chosen in the Filipino version was less convincing than the one in the original, because there seemed to have been no indication to do the imaging required to diagnose it. 7/10.