You Are The One
| Rating: | ★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Comedy |
Directed by Cathy Garcia-Molina
Star Cinema
2006
Cathy Garcia-Molina’s “You Are The One” is a “good” film once we consider it is familiar to us and once we realize it is our story. The movie is a latest addition to the date-movie flicks, a cinema staple typical of the works by upcoming young directors.
Like other Filipino flicks, though, what follows is You Are The One’s formulaic [a.k.a predictable] storyline. A storyline is said to be predictable if there is not much new anything in it, and when we know exactly what can happen even if we just doze off inside the movie house the whole time.
A young National Statistics Office (NSO) female employee files her visa before a stern Fil-Am boy who is a vice-consul at the US embassy. Immediately the bubbly [read: Kikay] girl is smitten by the boy’s looks. After the girl’s inconsistency in her statements, Fil-Am boy denies girl US visa; the girl gets very disappointed.
Fil-Am boy gets trapped in a noonday Quezon City traffic jam, cancels going to work, and chances by the NSO; he later searches for his roots [requests for a birth certificate], meets the girl in her office.
The love-struck girl who first contemplated revenge now befriends boy. She later helps him find his Filipino parents in Pampanga. Sooner, their partnership develops into intimacy.
Conflict arises when the boy’s supposed parents are not the real ones. Boy gets intimidated by such failure and later, depressed; slams the girl like there has never been a relationship.
After a fellow employee tips her of the boy’s records, girl gives boy other names of his possible relatives in Bulacan. Boy ignores it, badly hurt and intimidated. Girl catches the boy sleeping with a foreigner girl; she confronts him. Girl goes away.
Girl becomes bitter, tries to forget the boy. After the girl’s sister has visited the Philippines for a conference, girl reconsiders plans to go to US after she settles her emotional rift with “estranged” sister. Boy goes back to the girl but the girl has already resigned from the NSO job. Girl gets ready to fly to the US.
But one day, rain pours hard thanks to the director’s props—the girl’s contingent is trapped and delayed for the flight; boy’s taxi arrives just in time. Later, people in the entire neighborhood hold umbrellas for the two to patch things up.
Dressed as a pig mascot, the boy apologizes to the girl publicly; girl demands the boy to profess his love for her. The public witnesses a rainy soap opera live before their very eyes. End of story.
End of story. Of the same story. Of the same story. One critic said that perhaps we want the same story because we are so familiar with it that it dictates our lives. Our familiarity with it makes us want more of the same thing.
So are we not tired of the same story? No, we say. Anything new is not the same story. So we patronize it. And because big producers like ABS-CBN produce these kinds of films and we have no choice not because this is what is given to us, but because this is what we demand. We later say this is what is given to us because indeed this is what we demand. Producers always cater to what we consumers need, and because for long we have been programmed by the media to act like we now do.
This has always been the story we want. This has always been our story in which we forever delight. While making our minds stagnate with these flicks because they do not make us think, these movies do not challenge our minds, but only entertain us and make us forget the cares of the day [which, to us, is more important anyway]. To us it is already okay. We are content with such a treat not because we are mababaw but because it features a number of things to familiar to us—it film features in the characters our very personalities; these characters are our very sensibilities.
First off, Toni Gonzaga is Sally Malasmas, the NSO East Avenue employee whose family migrated in the United States. Left to fend for herself, the yuppie in Sally projects a strong bubbly personality but whose hopes are dimmed when she is denied a visa to go to the States. Her bubbly character affords the movie its comic finesse. Without such bubbly-ness, You Are the One may not at all be the one where we with our time and effort. It is as though Gonzaga’s comic aura just so spontaneously delights her co-characters. Not at all pretty [which is most usually required for lead female characters], her taray personality is entirely unique, not like Maricel Soriano’s or those of her forerunners—you are just elated by her charisma.
From the Sprite commercial [I Love You, Piolo!”] in the late 90s, Toni Gonzaga has come a long way in the film industry. Her lead role in this film all the more makes her a very serious actress to consider. She propels the plot as the story revolves around her relationship with Sam Milby’s character and her remote family in the US.
Sam Milby’s Will Derby satisfactorily delivers a Fil-Am sensibility whose naivety does not become a hindrance to his task of finding his roots in Pampanga or Bulacan. Will Derby, the Fil-Am vice consul at the US Embassy who denied her visa is a typecast—a stereotype. His Asian-Caucasian looks easily fit the role, though most necessarily his diction and twang.
Like other pigeonholed roles, his character is the one that can easily be forgotten in the pages of out “movie memory” because he does not provide a fresh look at our consciousness. He highly portrays a type, a stereotype or stock character—whose existence though necessary for the story, is not a memorable one.
Eugene Domingo’s character is a delightful treat. One of the most sought after comediennes to date, Domingo’s signature antics coupled with her expressive facial expressions and smirks help bring the house down, just like she did in “D Lucky Ones” [together with Pokwang]. It is always wise for the filmmakers to provide for the character of Eugene Domingo because her talent is bankable. She reminds us of Nova Villa characters who are given the best punch lines or one-liners [those statements that make you think deeper about the story being presented].
In fact, Domingo acted out the lead character in the Palanca-winning play “Palanca In My Mind” which was presented during the 56th Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature held in Dusit Hotel September 1st. She led the comedy cast who portrayed the making of a Palanca die-hard. Domingo’s performance before the intellectual elite virtually brought the house down.
Meanwhile, Gio Alvarez’s Melody is another flat character reminiscent of Mel Martinez or Bernardo Bernardo, the screaming faggot who does not only portray the queerest character but even acts as “tulay” to the lovers Sally and Will. Like Eugene Domingo’s role, we do not forget this one because he is queer. To Filipinos, what is queer is always—necessarily—interesting. He interests us because he is noisy, and because he is among us, or one of us.
So there—to us, the movie is good because we find familiar characters in it—we find ourselves in it. Or we [get to] laugh to our hearts’ content watching a comic sitcom on the silver screen. Virtually, we do not feel cheated or shortchanged at all because we are only given what we want.
Yet, hardly we realize that while it does entertain us [because it features the same characters we have been used to knowing or identifying with], it does not at all make us think. Worse, we even feel it is more than enough.
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