When is box-office victory not sinful?

As we watched It Takes A Man & A Woman on the first hour of its first day of showing, we could hardly get a seat. Much less had we arrived later. What is there in direk Cathy Garcia-Molina, we had often wondered? We asked her, what did she have, that would spell box-office victory, that others did not?  “Honestly, di ko po alam,” she answered. “Swerte lang po siguro na yung gut feel ko ay hawig sa gusto ng manonood.” (“I honestly don’t know. Perhaps I’m just lucky that my gut feel corresponds with what the audience likes.”)

Direk Cathy is considered the country’s box-office director, with five films listed in the highest-grossing films in the Philippines.

Among them are the 2008 A Very Special Love, a romantic comedy about Laida Magtalas (Sarah Geronimo), family breadwinner working for rich and handsome Miggy Montenegro (John Lloyd Cruz). It earned a total of P179,569,117, highest-grossing Filipino film of 2008. The 2009 sequel You Changed My Life had John Lloyd and Sarah reprising their growing relationship, without forgetting the “kilig” factor. It grossed P230,436,128 to become the first Filipino film to surpass the P200M-mark.

The final installment of the John Lloyd-Sarah franchise It Takes A Man & A Woman answered the challenge of offering a more mature perspective, according to direk Cathy, transforming a girl and a boy into a man and a woman with the capability of love and forgiveness, beyond just the “kilig” factor. Writer Carmi Raymundo said they came by the final saga by recreating just what Miggy and Laida would do if faced with such a situation.

The last in the series is definitely more mature, the acting more secure, with direk Cathy, the expert weaver of fairy tales, engaging laughter one minute, and tears two minutes later. In this film, four years after You Changed My Life, Lloydie plays a loser who swallows his pride after his brother (Rowell Santiago) arranges a last-ditch plan to save the family business and Lloydie’s future, through a proposal to the company Sarah now works for. Sarah, who had gone to New York hurt by catching him in the arms of another (Isabelle Daza), plays hard to get, adopting a ridiculous American twang to hide her bitterness, yet crying her heart out in the arms of her mother. Their final acceptance of their love for each other does not come as a surprise to the audience, who have had enough of tears.  

In their early partnering, clearly, Lloydie is the actor and Sarah the much-awarded singer. Lloydie’s acting career is matched only by Bea Alonzo, with whom he also shares the enormous hit The Mistress. After Tabing-Ilog where he won his first acting award for TV in 2001, came Kay Tagal Kitang Hinintay with Bea, which toppled all teleseryes at the time and brought a large fan base for the Lloydie-Bea love team.

After films teaming up Lloydie with Bea, Sarah, Angel Locsin and Toni Gonzaga, there was no stopping Cathy from reaching the skies. Not that it had been easy. In our interview with Cathy, she confessed starting to direct in 1997 for Gimik and Tabing Ilog as second unit director, and one Maalaala Mo Kaya episode for three years until she thought, “di talaga para sa akin ang directing. My late husband, Philip Molina, thought of migrating to New Zealand.” In 2004, she did the Hero Angeles-Sandara Park episode in the trilogy Bcuz of U and her first full-length movie Close to You (John Lloyd-Bea), and all the good luck followed.

Although she prefers working in the movies to perfect each shot, each scene averaging two to three sequences a day, still she dutifully accepts television jobs that require 25 to 40 sequences per day. Starting this week, she will do a family comedy-drama starring Bea, Angel, Toni, Shaina Magdayao and Enchong Dee. By June, there will be a Kathryn Bernardo-Daniel Padilla teleserye.

When will she work on an indie, we probed? “I don’t think in the near future. Theirs is a different world altogether. I have been so used to doing mainstream, I’m afraid I might give the indie a mainstream treatment. Nakakahiya!” she answered. 

Finally, what is more important to her — box-office or critical success, we asked. Quickly, she said, “Critical success. Food for the soul po yun. Ang box-office success I believe is the validation of that.”

We find in Cathy a grateful individual, one who realizes that good things don’t just happen by accident. They are made to happen by someone else, and for this, one should be beholden. Would that there be more like her.

(E-mail me at [email protected].)