Three-way battlefield in cautionary drama

REYES. Fights to the “death” to keep her man.

The three lead players in “No Other Woman,” Anne Curtis, Cristine Reyes and Derek Ramsey, act up a passionate storm, ushering in a “steamier” season for local dramas.

At film’s start, Derek is happily and “exclusively” married to Cristine, but “resort heiress” Anne soon puts his avowed romantic fealty to a stringent test.

At first, she swears that she just wants to have a good time, no strings or manacles attached, but they soon get carried away and Cristine realizes that she has to fight to the “death” to keep her man.

After the smoke finally clears on their triangulated battlefield, Derek has learned his lesson bitterly and all too well, and the film ends decidedly on the side of the (married) angels.

Combatants

Well and good, but the movie’s cautionary tale about the dire consequences of marital infidelity is more than occasionally compromised by its stars’ heavingly over-the-top portrayals, and by too many “coincidences” designed to situate its combatants at the wrong place at the right time (to make them come together for the “confrontation scenes” required to make “triangular” dramas hit their shrill melodramatic marks before the final fade).

To be sure, there are a few thankfully quiet scenes in Ruel Bayani’s film that show the director’s appreciation for subtety and contrast. But, the exigencies of “passionate” melodrama soon take over again, and it’s high-strung unreality time once more.

Aside from the movie’s sexy scenes and confrontations, viewers delight in the script’s “quotable” lines that sassily comment on the malevolence of mistresses, who are compared to snatchers in Quiapo, among other “delicious” insults. But, even these feisty putdowns end up as distractions, because they’re so pointedly, heavily dropped.

Major irritant

In terms of performance, it’s Cristine who comes off best, because she comes up with a less “decorated” and more deeply felt portrayal. Derek’s characterization is too fixated on his own persona to be truly creative. And the character he plays ends up being a major irritant and frustration because, for all his reputed intelligence and ambition, he thinks with his gonads.

It is this willful lack of sensitivity and responsibility that makes his marriage fall like a house of cards, so we think that he shouldn’t have been let off so easily. If the lascivious lout learns his lesson only on the nominal “realization” level, what’s all the heaving and convoluted storytelling for?

The least successful stellar performance is turned in by Anne Curtis because, for all of her attempts at deeply-felt and emotionally urgent acting, her portrayal is high-strung, self-conscious, fraught with “style” rather than substance, and decorative from start to finish.

Yes, her character is supposed to be stylish, rich, accomplished, beautiful, sexy, liberated, spoiled and used to getting anything and anyone she sets her eye and heart on – but, the actress limits herself mainly to the external and shallow manifestations of those interestingly contradictory traits, so her performance ends up illuminating, not her character, but the actress’ self-satisfied projection of herself.

She’s forever assuming lovely, arresting and fascinating poses, like she’s shooting a pictorial. Alas, this is a movie, not a photo spread, so her portrayal leaves that much to be desired.