Frenetically ‘colorful’ development distracts from rom-com leads’ portrayals

BEA ALONZO and Enrique Gil in “She’s the One”: Tough time

Bea Alonzo turned in the best performance in “Four Sisters and a Wedding,” so we looked forward to her solo female lead portrayal in Mae Czarina Cruz’s “She’s the One,” with Dingdong Dantes costarring.

Unfortunately, Bea’s much-anticipated thespic success was blunted by a number of factors, principally including her latest  starrer’s less than original storyline and central conflict (best friends who take forever to admit and realize that they are not just platonically interested in and involved with each other).

Really now

This cinematic mother lode has been mined by previous productions, so the bloom is off the rose.

To add perjury to injury, the Bea-Dingdong flick includes another, younger, “best friends” couple played by Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano, who ultimately teach their senior coplayers how blindly and wrongheadedly they’ve been behaving. Really now, aren’t there any other plot and relationship themes to grow on and belabor?

True, the fact that Bea tries to forget Dingdong by forcing herself to reciprocate the addled love offered to her by the much younger Enrique does make her value herself much more than before and zaps the movie with a groovier vibe. But, the “best friends in love” template still weighs the production down.

Another dampener is the film’s ploy to “expand” its TV rom-com context to more cinematic proportions not by making its storytelling more complex and thus edgily insightful, but by just adding a passel of concerned gang mates and relatives to its supporting cast of characters.

Old gambit

Instead of enriching the material, as intended, this modern twist on the old “Greek chorus,” gambit more often than not just makes the proceedings louder and more agitated, as each of the colorful chorus members tries to make his clever or at least attention-calling mark on Bea and Dingdong’s supposedly central story and conflict.

No wonder

Given this frenetically “colorful” development, it’s no wonder that Bea has a tough time keeping the movie focused enough on her protagonist character to really share an insightful look into her troubled heart and soul.

Yes, she figures in a couple of truly pained and powerful thespic moments, but these come too few and far between in a long movie that’s concerned with, oh, so many other things for the ace actress to match her even more focused portrayal in her previous film, despite the fact that she had to share it with other lead players.

Hard work

As for Dingdong, he works really hard to come up with a satisfyingly deep and complex portrayal, but the writing of his supposedly more “lightweight” character gets in the way of a genuinely compelling performance.

Yes, the fact that his character is supposed to be frivolous and lacking in substance is at the core of his thespic essence, but you can’t keep playing it “lightweight” until the film is about to end—because, if you do that, with precious few elaborations and contradictions, how can you possibly achieve the character arc needed for viewers to fully understand the dimensions of the character you’re playing?

For his part, Enrique Gil registers appealingly and strongly in some scenes, but in his more telling sequences with Bea, he’s too eager to please and thus can’t measure up to her thespic drive and focus.

Ditto for Liza, who’s simply too raw and clueless to make good use of the break she’s given here.

Lack of focus

To be sure, “She’s the One” is usually engaging, full of eye candy and droll diversions. But its relative lack of focus and true character grit makes it less than the thoroughly winsome and winning viewing experience it clearly aims to be.