Distractions, clichés dilute ‘Glamorosa’s’ brisk opening salvo

TOLENTINO. Even exceptional talent is subject to the rigors, limitations and contradictions of predictable plot and character development.

The first telecast of TV5’s new teleserye, “Glamorosa,” last Nov. 7, started off on the right foot because it didn’t begin when its major characters were still newborn babes, as many TV dramas do.

The brisk opening telecast efficiently set up the parameters for the central rivalry between the lead characters played by Lorna Tolentino and Alice Dixson—partly due to familial strife,  and exacerbated in a big way by their combative love for the same man, a handsome troublemaker played by Zoren Legaspi.

The lively storytelling saved a lot of time that the new series could use for greater detail and dramatic complication, and to more interestingly and affectingly develop its main characters.

Major irritant

Speaking of principal characters, the cosmetic surgery guru played by Gloria Diaz quickly emerged as a major irritant in both Lorna and Alice’s lives: She made her daughter, Lorna, feel unloved and unappreciated, and Alice yearned to avenge herself on the lofty lady for the suffering Gloria had inflicted on Alice’s own mother (Daria Ramirez).

Unfortunately, the show’s opening salvo was rendered less than choice by its employment of too many plot and character clichés for the series to emerge as a view-worthy serial drama in its own right.

The focus on the “plastic” world of surgery was relatively novel, but the general fixation on glamour and beauty for its own sake has already been done “to death” in other shows, most eminently in “Magkaribal,” which pitted the more iconically lovely Gretchen Barretto and Angel Aquino against each other.

Lorna and Alice may be beautiful, but not iconically so—therefore, to build them up as paragons of aesthetic pluperfection is to court dissention.

Moreover, both lead actresses are initially made to play their characters as rather young women—students, even—and that’s stretching credulity, not to mention epidermal evidence to the contrary, a whole lot!

Bone of contention

Another bone of contention is the choice of Zoren Legaspi as the man who drives the two main protagonist-antagonists to passionate heights and paroxysms of jealousy and hate. Zoren does his level best to be convincing as a lovable rogue and charismatic cad, but he just doesn’t have it in him.

To be sure, Lorna’s proven and time-tested thespic talent can be relied on to make her dramatic scenes in the new series come off convincingly. But, even exceptional talent is subject to the rigors, limitations and contradictions of predictable plot and character development, so the “grand slam” acting awardee can only do so much to “save” the show.

P.S.: Subsequent telecasts of “Glamorosa” have generally confirmed our initial impressions. As of last Wednesday, Lorna had given birth right after a car accident, but Gloria had the newborn babe spirited away; Alice was finally able to get her clutches on the temporarily amnesiac Zoren, but his memory was coming back—and the battleground was slowly but surely being set for an all-out war between the series’ two ferocious combatants!