Noon at Ngayon the sequel an entertaining fare

When Moral was released in 1982, it had the tough luck of having had to compete with some of the landmark films in Philippine cinema: Batch ’81, Himala and Oro, Plata, Mata.

But had it been fielded in another year, Moral could have easily been voted Best Picture in all the awards races.

Produced by Jesse Ejercito for Seven Star Productions, Moral is one of Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s more significant works (but only after Jose Rizal).

Written by Ricardo Lee, it is the story of four UP coeds who become best friends after attending a remedial class together one semester.

Joey (played by Lorna Tolentino) still finds no direction in life even after graduation. She continues to carry the torch for underground leader Gerry (Michael Sandico), who doesn’t love her and, in fact, marries another rebel, Nita (Mia Gutierrez).

Kathy (Gina Alajar), frothy in her ways, is forever the trying-hard singer. She beds a record manager (Jess Ramos), a lesbian manager (Odette Khan) and is this close to becoming popular until she realizes she doesn’t want to pursue a career in singing anymore if she really can’t be good at it.

Sylvia (Sandy Andolong), the most mature among them, teaches in the collegiate level while taking up Law. She is married, but separated from her husband Robert (Juan Rodrigo), who turns out to be homosexual. After the separation, Robert decides to live in with macho dancer Celso (Lito Pimentel), who, oddly enough, ends up befriending Sylvia.

Maritess (Anna Marin) gets pregnant and marries – in that order – Dodong (Ronald Bregendahl) even before she gets to tuck in her college degree. She is doomed to becoming a one-woman baby factory – on the insistence of her chauvinistic pig of a husband and his very traditional family –had she not gotten out of her marriage in time.

Moral ends with Kathy, Sylvia and Maritess driving Joey to the airport (presumably to find direction in life abroad) and no one would have thought a sequel would come out of it after 21 years.

Now comes Moral II – with the new title Noon at Ngayon – Pagsasamang Kayganda. Although I don’t particularly like the sequel’s title (and that subtitle – doesn’t it sound like the slogan of an old shampoo commercial?), I won’t make an issue out of it anymore. After all, the original title of Moral wasn’t even Moral, but Imoral – until the censors objected to it and made it Moral. (One more objection from them guardians of morality and Ricky Lee was said to have been all set to remove the M in Moral and make the film’s title Oral).

What’s important is the fact that the film is able to come up with a coherent follow-up story to the original material.

Now, we see Joey (played this time by Dina Bonnevie) coming home to take care of her mother Maggie (still portrayed by original Moral cast member Laurice Guillen). She has supposedly found direction in life, but gets into a new sticky situation by falling in love with Levi (Jericho Rosales), the son of Maritess (now played by Cherry Pie Picache). (There will be a startling revelation at the film’s climax regarding this). Maritess has two other children – played by Jodi Sta. Maria (an unwed mother who refuses to marry the father of her baby, Patrick Garcia) and Paolo Contis, who is gay.

Kathy (Jean Garcia), now a trinkets dealer, is raising an equally frivolous daughter (Aiza Marquez), who dresses just as outlandishly.

Sylvia (Eula Valdez), now assistant dean of the College of Law, is still in good terms with ex-husband (Noni Buencamino) and has become very close to Celso (still played by Lito Pimentel), who has become completely swishy.

Having seen the original Moral, it feels rather uneasy watching the sequel with the same characters, but played this time by an almost entirely new cast (especially those in the key roles).

Star Cinema, producer of Noon at Ngayon, could have easily reassembled the old Moral stars considering the fact that they are still very much around (I just saw Anna Marin the other night in Magpakailanman) and have evolved into even better actresses. Maybe the film company wanted to ensure its box office success by casting Eula and Jean, two of ABS-CBN’s hot soap actresses. And then, of course, I know for a fact that they were trying to get Lorna Tolentino to do the Joey part once more except that they couldn’t agree on the price (Just a Moral trivia: Lorna wasn’t really the original choice for the Joey role, but Amy Austria. Moral, however, became the turning point in Lorna’s acting career).

Fortunately, the new cast members still deliver uniformly fine performances. The only drawback of Jean Garcia and Eula Valdez is the fact that they look way too young to be playing women in their early 40s – which is supposed to be the age of the characters they are playing in the sequel.

I’m also quite disappointed with the way the characters of Sylvia and Maritess turned out to be. Sylvia, who is supposed to be the most sensible, is disappointed over the fact that her son (Marvin Agustin) and his wife (Dimples Romana) couldn’t have children of their own and is vehemently opposed to their adopting one – which isn’t like the open-minded Sylvia in the original Moral.

And Maritess? How can she not accept her son’s gayness and her daughter’s being an unwed mother when 20 years ago, she walked out of her marriage to be her own woman – her own person?

But then, people change and I’m just accepting that as one of the developments in this sequel of Moral.

The important thing is that the sequel is very entertaining fare – with witty lines and crisp dialogues. Noon at Ngayon is definitely a must-see among lovers of Filipino movies.

But is it better than the original? For sure, Noon at Ngayon is far more entertaining. But let’s put it this way: the first Moral was made at a time when we were under a dictatorship – when there was no artistic freedom, but which all the more challenged the creative juices of Lee and Abaya.

The concerns of Noon at Ngayon, on the other hand – although very real – actually look a lot more flippant (There was even an issue of militarism in the first one). Maybe this is an indication that in spite of the continuing peso devaluation and those failed coup attempts all around us, we are still living in a better world today where there is democracy and the right to finally express ourselves freely.