From "Baba Queen" to "Comedy Queen"

For the life of me, I can’t recall if I watched Ang Tanging Ina (2003) on the big screen. That’s forgivable, though. After all, it has been five years since Ai-ai de las Alas gave Star Cinema this major hit and established herself as a definite box office queen in the making. What I do recall, however, is that I found Ang Tanging Ina quite entertaining—enough, apparently, to be happy to hear that a sequel was going to be shown during the 2008 Metro Manila Film Festival. 

I finally watched Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat (directed, again, by Wenn Deremas) over the weekend—funnily enough, with my two-year-old niece Keona dozing on my lap. We were at the mall the day after the New Year festivities, apparently because some neighborhood idiot had decided to light up firecrackers at the foot of the electric post near our house, leaving our power connection askew and causing it to give out 24 hours later. Keona, being post-Generation Y, was bored out of her wits at home without Dora the Explorer and the Baby Einsteins, so I decided to bring her to the mall. When she started asking for milk, I suggested to her Nana Tin that we try to bring her to the movie theater.

It turned out to be a great decision—even if it meant watching the entire movie with my feet propped up on a metal barrier and having a dozing baby snuggling against my chest.

I’ve always found Ai-Ai funny. However, during the early years of her career, she wasn’t really given a good vehicle with which to showcase her comedic talent. I don’t know if many of you remember this, but Ai-ai (and, I think, most of her unimaginative handlers) launched her career on the basis of her long chin—and we used to lap it up! Thank goodness for political correctness, right?

Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat continues the story of single mother Ina Montecillo and what’s left of her twelve children—four of them are already abroad, but they do make “appearances.” The attempt at continuity is a nice touch, even when pushed as far as giving John Pratts’ character another shot at romance with his rumored new love Shaina Magdayao’s character, the younger sister of his ex-girlfriend Heart Evangelista’s character in Ang Tanging Ina.

The film has the following strengths: the explosive team-up between Ai-Ai and Eugene Domingo; the solid acting of supporting actors and actresses (Carlo Aquino, Jiro Manio and Gloria Diaz stand out); the script’s consistency; and the story’s steady pacing. For Ina Montecillo to become president of the Philippines from being a Malacañang chambermaid is quite a stretch, but it turns out convincingly enough.

The flaws of most local comedies are that they tend to drag out jokes that aren’t even funny to begin with and they make fun of the physical attributes of some characters. There were none of these in Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat, despite the humor being “Pinoy na Pinoy.” However, there was still that grating tendency to equate funny with screaming and incessantly talking out loud. 

Ai-Ai is excellent at balancing comedy and drama: she shifts, with ease, from laugh out loud scenes to scenes that tug at the heart. She is, without question, of a different brand of comedy from the time she first broke into show business.

The years since Ang Tanging Ina have obviously been good to her too: she now has a certain confidence about her that shows in how she glows. She’s definitely a far cry from her old self—one that accepted the title “Baba Queen” as if that was all there was to her.

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