Scripting issues deflect high-flying rom-com’s upward trajectory

PASCUAL AND GONZAGA. Belatedly introduced complication comes too late.

Olivia Lamasan’s “Starting Over Again” begins with a back story that shows lead characters played by Piolo Pascual and Toni Gonzaga happily and even giddily in love for several years—until they break up! Why their romance ends isn’t made immediately clear, and is even kept vague until much later in the film.

When it’s finally clarified, the movie, which is otherwise unfolding quite well, is suddenly hobbled by “retroactive” problems related to scripting issues:

It’s finally revealed that, despite her great love for him, Toni’s character decides to turn down Piolo’s offer of marriage—because she’s “afraid” that he will turn out to be an unreliable weakling like her father!

—Uh, where did that unexpected deal-breaker come from?

The belatedly-introduced complication comes too late to be organically viable from a genuinely dramatic point of view—especially since, before the putative “problem” is revealed, Piolo’s character, who starts out as a History teacher, is definitely depicted not as a weakling.

So, why the drastic character twist, and why is it introduced only in midstream?

This is faulty scripting, because it futilely strives to substantially alter the factual parameters that the viewer was earlier given to contextualize his empathetic reaction to the dramatic-romantic situation at hand.

The befuddling character twist is untenable because it is more theoretical than actual. True, right after the “reason” for Toni’s shocking rejection of Piolo is revealed, the film hastens to present a number of “examples” of Piolo’s character’s “weak” and “untrustworthy” behavior—but, the placement comes too late and feels forced, so the viewer remains unconvinced.

This is what happens when a character or plot complication is more a literary adumbration than an actual or “emotionally logical” development.

Major reason

The fact that Piolo’s character twist is a major reason for Toni’s decision to unexpectedly break up with him makes it all the more injurious to the film as a whole, sadly compromising its considerable  virtues.

Even the two lead’s portrayals are affected: They may try really hard to come up with felt, insightful and integral performances, but the movie’s “after-the-fact” scripting flaws weaken their earnest thespic efforts—a real pity all around.

Despite these deficiencies not of their own making, the lead players do better here than in their recent dramatic outings. Piolo has been “underacting” too much of late, but he summons up more edge and energy here, and that’s all to the good.

Toni does even better, sometimes junking her cliché “madcap and kooky” signature screen persona of old in favor of a more genuinely vulnerable thespic thrust—and much less make-up than usual!

In the final analysis, however, the movie’s directorial and thespic felicities can’t come to an integral and organic peak due to the scripting infirmities we’ve cited.

We hope that this less than stellar turn of events will make directors and actors more aware of the importance of clarifying scripting problems and infirmities before shooting starts.

Not all the initiative and talent in the world can make the implausible dramatically cogent and empathetically real enough—for viewers to embrace it with full, unquestioning empathy.