Lovebirds: Boots shocks

Boots Anson-Roa had always served as the benchmark for good behavior, proper decorum and even saintliness, especially in this very sinful world called show business. As a TV host, she (and Leila Benitez, too) had always been the yardstick for several generations of emcees after her and I have to say that one of the highlights of my career was having co-hosted at least one Urian awards night with her and it was a marvelous experience because she was so professional.

As an actress, she is one of our reliable veterans and she could have had a longer list of acting awards (she has two Best Actress trophies: 1972 for Tatay na si Erap and 1974 PATAS for the TV series Eliza) if only she didn’t have limitations.

The public may not remember this anymore, but she was already married with kids when she embraced the acting profession. While she joined showbiz when she was still single, she only did TV hosting then — Dance-O-Rama, where she met her husband, Pete Roa, who passed away just the other year.

When Boots became a movie-TV actress therefore there were daring roles she couldn’t do because she was already a wife and mother. Now I don’t know if she imposed those limitations herself. More likely, producers and directors didn’t even dare offer her sexy roles because they didn’t want to corrupt the living saint of the local entertainment profession.

Oh, but she was once cast in one of the sexiest movies in the history of local cinema: The original Mga Uhaw na Bulaklak where the boldest she did was do a love scene on top of a dining table — fully clothed. And for the pictorial, while her co-stars were all clad in nothing but skimpy two-piece swimsuits, she wore a top with long sleeves and a most modest pair of shorts with the length of a skirt.

Unfortunately for Boots, she was abroad with her family during one of the golden ages of the movies — 1982 till EDSA I. When she finally returned to the country, Lino Brocka (who earlier directed her in Wanted: Perfect Mother and Santiago) was dead and Ishmael Bernal also went soon after.

But she did have some challenging roles in this new millennium and was good at them. The first was in Jeffrey Jeturian’s Bridal Shower where she played the aristocratic mother-in-law of Francine Prieto. Pitted against another seasoned veteran — Gina Pareño, who was Francine’s social-climbing mom — local moviegoers were treated to a truly comedic memorable scene on the big screen (the formal pamamanhikan).

Then, there was Joel Lamangan’s Blue Moon, where she even earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino. Somewhere along the way, she also did Paolo Herras’ Recados where she played a cook who sells food for a living. Those roles — marked as they were — however, were only secondary.

Recently, I saw her in a DVD copy of the indie film Lovebirds, which I understand was exhibited last year. In fact, in a news item I saw on the entertainment page of this paper, she had already been declared Best Supporting Actress by the Gawad Tanglaw.

Her role in Lovebirds may be categorized as supporting, but it is lengthy and the film wouldn’t stand without her character. The part she plays is a main ingredient in the story.

Directed by Ronaldo Bertubin, Lovebirds is about a young gay man played by Joseph Ison. Through the Internet, he met a Spaniard, Andres Alexis Fernandez, who insists on coming over to the Philippines to visit so that they could personally meet. The problem is that Joseph has yet to officially come out of the closet. All along, Boots — as the mother — thinks that the visitor is female (and hoping that she is Joseph’s girlfriend) because of the name Alexis.

When Alexis arrives and Boots realizes that he is male, she announces to everyone that the girlfriend Alexis has fallen ill and has sent the brother Alex. Of course, no one in town believes her and she continues to be in denial. Ironically enough, it is the father of Joseph, Tommy Abuel, who is more understanding and even tells Boots to stop the charade and face the truth that their son is gay and is in love with another man.

As a film, Lovebirds is quite charming (must be set in a small town in Laguna since there is reference to Sampaloc Lake) and has a heartwarming story because it is about family — but with a gay twist. Save for some scenes of male nudity, the film is not exploitative. It zeroes in more on parent-children relationships — about how a mother will never stop loving her kids.

Lovebirds is a comedy film that relies mainly on the performances of the cast members and mercifully everyone delivers well. I have no idea where they found Spanish actor Andres Alexis Fernandez, but he is one fine actor who delivers his lines in a most natural way. Tommy Abuel, of course, is an old reliable and he has wonderful comic moments in the film. Joseph Ison I’ve seen only one other time on film — in the remake of Nympha. But he is far more impressive here in Lovebirds and you see the confusion in his face and in his eyes — and about how uncomfortable he is in the situation he is thrown into with the arrival of his male lover in this country that still has biases against homosexuality.

But it is Boots who is the thread of the entire film. It is a very difficult role that she is made to play — especially since she is doing something totally alien to her, even to followers of local films.

Imagine this actress identified with Virgin Mary roles mouthing the vernacular term for the female organ? She is also most effective delivering mangled English phrases that sound so comedic when she utters them. I could only wish she was given even funnier lines because some dialogues may have been hilarious on paper, but fall flat in the actual staging. Her constant battle cry “Not in my house!” in time also became repetitive.

But over-all, this is a totally new Boots Anson-Roa that we see in this indie project Lovebirds. She is at her best here. After more than four decades, she finally shocks the entertainment world, but in a most delightful way.