Why ‘A Second Chance’ is the sleeper hit film of the year

BEA ALONZO (left) and John Lloyd Cruz Eloisa Lopez. FILE PHOTO

SOME film buffs have asked us to “explain” why “A Second Chance” has unexpectedly turned out to be the “sleeper” hit of the current and concluding film year.

Well, a lot of its success can be attributed to its gifted leads, Bea Alonzo and John Lloyd Cruz, their tandem’s long-running popularity, and the accessibility and “love-ability” of their “signature” characters, Basha and Popoy.

Looking back, we see from their respective career notes that John Lloyd starred in the 2002 TV drama series, “Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay,” with Lorna Tolentino, and then newbie Bea Alonzo was tapped to team up with him for the first time.

Their tandem quickly found favor with the viewing public, so the very next year, the young stars were given their own TV costarrer, “It Might be You,” which also did well.

Star Cinema took this as an auspicious sign and whipped up their first film pairing in the “Two Hearts” episode in the anthology film, “My First Romance.”
Next came the full-length “Now That I Have You” (2004), and another TV soap series, “Ikaw Ang Lahat Sa Akin,” in which they costarred with Claudine Barretto and Diether Ocampo.

Significant exposure

The fact that the Bea-John Lloyd tandem was given significant exposure and showcasing each year indicated it was deemed to be one of the ABS-Star sister companies’ hot properties.

Quite “logically,” therefore, they found themselves even busier in 2006, with a third movie, “Close To You,” a drama series, “Maging Sino Ka Man,” and another romantic film, “All About You”!

Then came 2007, the landmark year in their professional stellar relationship, because its highlight was the hit film, “One More Chance,” in which viewers first fell in love with their “signature” characters, Popoy and Basha—who would resurface eight years later in this year’s blockbuster box-office sensation, “A Second Chance.”

Subsequent Bea-John Lloyd costarrers: 2008, “I Love Betty La Fea” on TV and “Miss You Like Crazy,” 2010 on the big screen. It’s instructive to note that there’s been an unusually long gap of four or five years between “Miss You Like Crazy” and 2015’s “A Second Chance”—which could help explain why viewers have embraced it so fervently.

In addition, the new film is a sequel to 2007’s “One More Chance” with Bea and John Lloyd again portraying Basha and Popoy—after seven turbulent years as a married couple.

The new film’s “bittersweet” twist and update on the original film’s roseately passionate romance apparently struck a chord and hit a nerve in adult or young-adult viewers.

They know from their own hard knocks experiences that marriage isn’t everything it’s fantasticatingly thought to be, so they were grateful to the film for telling it like it is.

It also helped a lot that they already “knew” Basha and Popoy before their marital “seven-year itch” had to be scratched, so they were able to rewardingly compare and contrast the roseate “before” to the realistic “after,” and thus derived unusually incisive insights therefrom!

Seen within the context of its two stars’ long back story as a love team, therefore, the phenomenal success that “A Second Chance” is currently still enjoying is definitely not a fluke.

Its key factor, in our view, is its at times painfully realistic “expose” on actual marriage.

On local film screens addicted to love that lasts “forever” and a day, that’s something truthfully, excitingly and rewardingly new!