Triple hitches and a wedding

Film review: I Do

MANILA, Philippines - Why do I still go to the movies and risk being bored by love stories already told a million times?

For one, I want to find out why they keep on using song titles to launch a movie. I was told it’s good for marketing.

I want to find out what the young ones are up to apart from their obsession with iPods and iPhones and YouTubes.

Or is there acting life after Gerald Anderson and Kim Chiu and Bea Alonzo and John Lloyd Cruz?

And just curious: do they still fall in love the way they do in Mike de Leon’s Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising?

Or is everything just a variation of stories already unfolding in the deluge of Filipino teleseryes seen regularly on Philippine television?

And so after an hour and a half of dazzling Le Corsaire and a two-hour break before a cello concert, I left Philamlife Theater to watch what director Veronica Velasco and her co-writer Jinky Laurel have to offer in their film I Do.

After seeing their antics on TV, I initially find the part of Pokwang and Dennis Padilla (as parents of Erich Gonzalez) a trifle disconcerting. But I surmise they were used as a foil to the understated but highly effective acting of Isay Alvarez and her family in this film.

In I Do, I get to see a classic case of class divide: Between a financially disciplined Chinese family and an equally hardworking but happy-go-lucky Filipino household not raised on the upper class rules of etiquette.

From the looks of it, the lead stars — Enchong Dee and Erich Gonzales — get to play parts probably untypical of their generation. Chinese families want Chinese bride for their siblings but Lance (Dee) defies family tradition for a crack at true love and a simple but proper wedding which his bride (Gonzales) sorely wants.

The two attempts to mount a wedding ceremony fail because of family objections. The third attempt was nearly aborted because of a freak accident which left the groom temporarily paralyzed. Erich’s family thought it was the last straw; but with a stroke of Laurel and Velasco’s writing, the wedding finally took place with the groom on a wheelchair. There is a dramatic moment in the post-wedding reception that Dee somehow manages to pull off: His expression of true love for his bride and what he would go through to prove it. Several years later, the groom finds love and forgiveness from his family.

Dee is still a work in progress as an actor but he has natural talent worth honing. The effort should be focused on projecting something real beyond his good looks. But his raw talent is fairly suffice for this movie that showcases his generation. Gonzales hardly differs from her teleserye roles in this film but I must say that she has an innate appeal that jibes with Dee’s youthful looks. I can say without batting an eyelash that Isay Alvarez as Dee’s mother is superb in this film.

Janus del Prado as Gonzales’s unrequited lover provides a lot of relief from the film’s tedious moments. He was given lines that are neither inane or profound but still they hit their mark with attempts at witticisms. Some samples: “Ang pag-ibig parang computer virus, sinisira lahat ng pinaghirapan mo;” “Ang pag-ibig ay parang ipis na tinapakan, akala mo patay na ‘yun pala buhay pa;” “Ang pag-ibig ay hindi parang ATM machine na kuha ka lang ng kuha. Mag-deposit ka naman!”

But on the whole, I Do is not a bad film. On some parts, it is entertaining and in some segments, quite poignant. It has focus but many scenes can be edited. The lead actors don’t disappoint.

Did I like the film?

Yes, I do.

As my friend Commodore Rex Robles would say it, “It’s disgusting but, (pause there) I love it.”