Spot-on ‘tandem’ portrayals delight viewers

VENERACION AND STA. MARIA. Praise-worthy for their artistic discretion and finesse.

ALL TOLD, we liked watching “All You Need Is Pag-ibig” at the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) despite its flaws, and one of its main plus points was its lead and supporting cast’s performances.

Taking different facts and factors into consideration, the best “tandem” portrayals in the uneven film were turned in by Ian Veneracion and Jodi Sta. Maria.

They’ve already been seen as a screen couple on the “Pangako Sa ’Yo” drama series, but they aren’t all that outstanding there.

In Antoinette Jadaone’s MMFF rom-com, however, they are a sight for sore eyes, fit like a glove, and succeed in sweetly vivifying the film’s elusive, evasive theme— about love often being a painful fuss and bother—but worth it in the end.

First off, Jodi and Ian make a beautiful couple—especially now that Jodi has departed from her severe Amor Powers look and is sporting a really chic wig with bangs that make her look like a (maturing) China doll.

Adding to viewers’ delight is the fact that Jodi and Ian don’t just look lovely and loverly together, they’re also sensitive actors who know how to make the “small” and “offhand” series of scenes they’re in “mean” something big and significant when their substory is concluded.

Nothing really major happens to them, just a number of seemingly insignificant “moments,” but the two stars fill them with intimations and “reverberations” that make viewers “understand” full well where their characters are headed—even if the “not-yet lovers” they play don’t know where they’re going—!

As you can imagine, that sort of delicate “fretwork” isn’t easy for actors to pull off, especially on the local TV-film scene, where broadly “semaphoring” declaring and even shouting how a character feels is the shallow order of the day.

All the more reason, then, to praise Ian and Jodi for their artistic discretion—and finesse!

More on Ian, in particular: It’s impressive to see how well he’s kept his still relatively youthful looks. Now that he’s been “rediscovered” in a big way, he can do more (maturing) lead characters and regain his popularity—so, 2016 could be his best year yet.

However, he needs to lose some weight, so that his physical and thespic appeal as a leading man can be further enhanced.

Senior couple

After Jodi and Ian, the other screen couple we’d like to cite is Ronaldo Valdez and Nova Villa, as the film’s resident “fuddy-duddy, old sticks-in-the-mud” senior married couple. Their “function” in the movie is quite limited—to exemplify love gone old and therefore bored and boring.

To their credit, however, the senior stars take their scenes beyond the confines of this potentially limiting intention, and make them “mean” even more, through sheer dint of their finely tuned and felt portrayals.

Like Ian and Jodi, they know the grace and power of the smallest look, the merest gesture, and their “little” scenes together end up “saying” a lot.

Their substory’s funniest scene is the one in which Nova thinks that Ronaldo has hinted at a hot night of lovemaking after a long, cold spell—so, she takes off all her clothes and—oops, (self-censored!)

But, their story is full of other “moments” that may be less laugh-out-loud, but are still full of life, and love, and insights that viewers of all ages can fully empathize with!