Too much, too soon

GIL AND SOBERANO. Portray troubled lothario and his ugly-duckling victim, respectively, in “Just The Way You Are.”

All bets are off. The promising love team of Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano hits a snag with the hasty release of Theodore Boborol’s “Just The Way You Are,” the better to strike while the tandem is sizzling hot—but, we’re not talking about the film’s supposedly impressive haul at the tills.

When you watch it, the Pinoy proverb, “Ang bungang hinog sa pilit, kung kainin ay mapait,” immediately comes to mind—and the strains are showing. It’s simply too much, too soon for the LizQuen partnership to handle.

Except for Soberano’s earnest attempt to create a credible and “relatable” character, everything about her eager-to-please rom-com feels contrived—including her photogenic partnership with Gil, who does nothing but punch every crowd-pleasing button presented to him.

Cocky but troubled lothario Drake Sison (Gil) has 30 days to make ugly-duckling transfer student, Sophia Taylor (Soberano), fall in love with him—and it isn’t in his nature to back out of sure bets! What he doesn’t bank on is the lovely swan that emerges out of the fabricated romance he cleverly manipulates.

As with most escapist flicks, guys like Drake aren’t bad boys and bullies through and through—they’re merely misunderstood pretty boys who just need damsels in distress to bring out the kindness they try so hard to conceal—so they can see the error of their ways!

In Drake and Sophia’s case, it’s just a matter of time before they realize that they’re truly meant for each other—when they’re not seen clumsily endorsing a plethora of products: An antipyretic drug for Sophia’s fever, a mobile provider to call her mother’s best friend, optical services, a generic drugs-peddling pharmaceutical franchise, etc.!

By the time Drake offers Sophia his branded hotdog, we half expect Kris Aquino and our friend, Boy Abunda, to make an appearance and plug “PBB’s” latest housemates (there are cameos from the reality show’s teenage alumni). Diabetics are best forewarned about the movie’s saccharine excesses—and lapses in logic—because the sugar rush is sometimes too much to take.

The duo’s individual back stories are awkwardly staged, (he hates his dad’s two-timing ways; she couldn’t get over her old man’s disastrous gambling habit), creating a curious diversion from the romantic drama’s soporific narrative progression.

Gil happily plays to the peanut gallery—and doesn’t do much else. For her part, Soberano, the production’s saving grace, is also compromised by a story material that’s hard to take seriously—but, at least she invests her character’s inherent reticence with honest resolve and affecting self-doubt.

The lovely teenager gets the “Pygmalion and Galatea” makeover here, but the graceless metamorphosis happens much too late in the tale to effect its desired impact on viewers.

It’s a curious directorial ploy that “conceals” Liza’s ethereal beauty for much of the film’s running time—and dilutes its transformative, happily-ever-after significance!