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Anticlimactic ending for ‘My Beloved’
By Nestor TorrePhilippine Daily Inquirer
We caught the concluding telecast of GMA 7’s drama series, “My Beloved,” and were quite taken by the show’s evocative and sometimes even ethereal visuals. However, a number of less than lovely elements caused the show to end, not with a beautiful and beatific bang, but with a wheedling whimper.
A major downer was the entire telecast’s anticlimactic feel, with little added by way of new dramatic developments, and a lot reheated for a second, flashback serving, in a sort of extended summing up of the series’ previous high points.
Worse, the show couldn’t leave well enough alone and even sought to stretch the relevance of its theme and plot to reach out into the next generation inhabited by the daughter of Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes’ characters, who was made to grow up, get married, and become a mother herself.
What was the point to all this multi-generational stretching? Just because it’s par for the teleserye course, because every drama series goes in for it? To overreach for even greater thematic significance and relevance?
Alas, the opposite turned out to be the case, because the long anticlimax weighed down the series’ ending, and prevented it from flying, the way all “angelic” stories should—even if its star-crossed lovers were made to reunite at Heaven’s gate.
The stickiest transition point turned out to be the time when Marian’s character was taken over by Boots Anson-Roa as her older and future self. This otherwise acceptable transition was made awkward by really bad timing: At first Marian was shown as the (slightly) “older” mother of her teen offspring; then, just a few years later, the daughter was shown getting married, and Marian’s character was now being portrayed by Boots!
Now, Boots still looks quite fetching, but it’s obvious that many years separate Marian from her on point of age—so, for her to replace Marian in less than a decade in the series’ concluding storytelling was distracting, to say the least.
Other quibbles: Even at her character’s most mature outing, Marian still didn’t pull off her crying scenes well, resorting to unnatural sobs and crying jags, instead of feeling them more deeply—and quietly?
After so many years as a TV-film star, you would think that Marian would finally be able to tell the difference between acting for show and really feeling her character’s emotional conclusions. Well, maybe next time?
It’s a good thing that Dingdong was spared the messy transition, because after his character’s physical death, he was made to stay in heaven and wait for Marian/Boots to finally come to him.
Still, the lack of subtlety in his screen partner’s portrayal compromised his own performance as well, although to a lesser degree.
Since Dingdong and Marian are a popular reel and real stellar tandem, it’s likely that they’ll be reunited in yet another GMA 7 drama series next season. Before that happens, however, we fervently hope that Marian licks her “sobbing” problem once and for all, so they can move up to the next dramatic level, as they should.
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