I was tempted to harrumph that everything you needed to know about the movie was in this post's title, but then when I started thinking more about it, I thought it would be a disservice to greatness of Armando Lacuesta's crazy but spot-on script, Carmi Martin's and to a lesser extent Gina Pareno's comic genius, and Bernal's amazing ability to somehow pull this movie off and maintain his arthouse cred, and changed my mind.
It's a film that is very easy to dismiss, especially in retrospect. What with its plot lines of unwanted pregnancy, fake pregnancy and secretaries tuned prostitutes and its agenda of furthering the woman's plight in the workplace, there are moments when the film felt like an unholy marriage of vapid, regurgitated telenovelas and empty and insight-less politics. Take Sabel (Rio Locsin), she of the now oft-quoted "Sabel, this must be love!", for example; a quiet, even mousy secretary to the more successful Carla (Hilda Koronel) who got pregnant by the company's resident lothario (played, inexplicably, well at least to me, by Tommy Abuel). Because this is the plot line she finds herself stuck with, Locsin's character goes through the whole gamut of predictable cinematic representations: from the first instances of morning sickness and nausea that was, of course, shot with a great deal of drama and foreboding, to the tearful confrontation with the boyfriend who couldn't care less, to the inevitable redemption scene towards the end, with officemates applauding her knocking one of the jerk office guys out. Seriously, Merriam-Webster Online would have the word cliche linked to these scenes. Similarly, Rose's (Maria Isabel Lopez) descent to prostitution is maddeningly outrageous; really, one would be ready to sell her vajayjay for that stupid yellow and black dress/ensemble/whatever you call that piece of atrocity she was hoping to buy but clearly couldn't afford?! Well at least she was prostituting herself for a novel cause (shopping); I'd take that over, say, her kid's tution or a sick, dying mom. Blech.
What I think saved the movie from all the hokey attempts at gravitas and social relevance (prostitution, abortion, sexual harassment in the workplace, were after all, serious issues in 1984, some would argue even until now) was how willing it was to easily abandon these things for a good laugh. In Suzanne Galang, a character Carmi Martin effortlessly propelled to the stratosphere of comic heroines of Philippine cinema, Lacuesta and Bernal could have had a really interesting character study of a woman who may not be competent enough to hold even the most banal of office jobs, yet who remorselessly uses her other assets to get ahead. Maybe even find true love. You know, something to give these feminist folks something to chew on and lose sleep over. Instead, Bernal cranked the camp and slapstick meter way up that there really is no choice for the viewer to just give up on thinking and just laugh himself/herself out. Martin's slight retarded yet amazingly sensual take on the office dumb slut is nothing short of phenomenal and raises the whole movie to a whole a new level.
If Martin does nothing for you (which, really, is a sign that you may need to seek some professional psychiatric help) then there's the incomparable Gina Pareno, who, in her equally brilliant way, shed some more memorability to the whole picture than it probably deserves. Her steely determination to provide a better life for her son drove her to spectacularly weird situations, from stalking a Makati executive and following her to an aerobics class to haggling for a payoff to support a baby she was never going to have. Pareno's comic timing is as flawless then as it is now, and her dependable commitment to whatever character she's playing elevates this, let's admit it, sloppy sketch to a character that we understand, perhaps even identify with.
Overall it was a good movie, not as great as I anticipated to be (like, say Temptation Island, whose sheer craziness can withstand the most ridiculous of praise and cult following) but the odds are stil not in favor of the upcoming remake to top this. It may be a minor Bernal but it is still a Bernal, and the overall fun and entertainment one would have in watching it can easily dispel any nagging thought that what you're watching is really a silly, sometimes overzealous, piece of fluff.
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